Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Why I guess we should have the right to bear arms after all

Indiana Law Student Shoots Real Estate Finance Casebook

I cannot thank Jenn enough for alerting me to this.

Wow. I love it. I love every second of it. And don't miss the comments at the end, which give still further insight into the law student psyche.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

But I do love cheese fries...






Take this test!


"Would you like fries with that?" Getting ready for an eight-hour shift where you sweat over a grill, flip burgers, and go through the all the motions on auto-pilot is your sure path to existential angst — not career fulfillment. With your massive mental muscle, you pride yourself on always having something to say and important thoughts to contribute. Problem solving, strategizing, and critical thinking are where you excel, and spending your days increasing your customers' waists just wouldn't fit the bill.


Always using your head, there's no doubt you get a reputation for being the smartest kid on the block no matter where you work. So it's no wonder that for someone with your intellectual curiosity, the worst jobs are those that don't exercise your mind. But hey, if you worked really hard, you might get promoted to drive-thru...



Thursday, October 18, 2007

Fenway it up!

Yeah, Red Sox! Yay. Yay, yay, yay.

That's all I've got.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Does Hofstra Law support terrorism?

Well, the short answer is, of course not! But apparently you'd be hard-pressed to tell anyone in New York that. Actually, the invitation of Lynne Stewart to the current ethics conference going on at Hofstra has even garnered national media attention. I have MySpace blogged about it, too, but I'll just quickly say here that I totally support Hofstra inviting her to speak at the conference, there is no part of me that thinks that means we all agree with everything she's done, and that no one has been able to rationally or even irrationally explain to me why she shouldn't come.

Something weird happens to people here in New York when they hear the word "terrorism." I just think people here are the most loopy reactionaries who have lost all ability to function in the face of the T-word. It's hard to explain what they're like. Because some accusation, however spurious, has been hurled at the woman involving passing information to "a terrorist organization," all rational argument has gone out the window. Come to think of it so have complete sentences. They just start foaming at the mouth and saying she wants to singlehandedly bring down the United States, as does apparently anyone who supports her.

See ya at the lecture.

http://law.hofstra.edu/NewsAndEvents/Conferences/EthicsConference/index.html

Sunday, October 14, 2007

In which Linda gets to the point

Today I ran another 5K. This one was not for a charitable cause but rather just a festive neighborhood event right here in Greenpoint. It is in fact called the "Get to the 'Point 5K Run." I wasn't even sure I was going to do it, although I had idly considered it a couple weeks ago but didn't register because I often work on Sunday afternoons. As it happened, I didn't work today and when I got up this morning I was super-lethargic and I really needed to go running after skipping yesterday and finally was like, why not just do the 5K at 1:00? So I did.

It was superfun. Loads of people from the 'hood, which means lots of Polish but a blend of other Brooklyn cultures as well. First there were 50- and 75-yard dashes for the kids and then the actual 5K. Quite the turnout! I was pretty sure I wouldn't go too fast. I have felt a little sickly this weekend, even suspecting I might have been allergic to something I ate in my wacky gnocchi at Heather's birthday party Friday night, but I pushed through today anyway even though I felt drained and blah. And then I enjoyed the free food and even free beer at the party afterward. That was like the best post-race party ever. It was a veritable hootenanny. People of all ages, the whole 'hood, yucking it up and eating copious amounts of food. The emcee throwing t-shirts and other prizes out to the crowd, who were all eating and drinking at long tables set up in a church event hall. Drawing numbers from a box to award prizes that couldn't be thrown, such as cases of beer and such. And then trophies to the top three in each age group.
My time was 27:36. Not bad for how I felt, I'll say that much. I was 178th out of 310 runners. I was sixth in my age/sex division, which was a particular bummer because they posted all the results there at the back of the hall during the party, and separate from the grand lists of all our times were the lists of the top five of each division -- missed it by that much! (in this case "that much" = 38 seconds)

So I've decided that maybe 5Ks are my new hobby. Especially when they're as fun as this one. And besides, you get a free t-shirt. I'll do a lot of things for a free t-shirt. Remember the polar bear swim, anyone?

And of course I've had the following song in my head all afternoon...

"Get to the point of it
Get to the sense of it
I'm in a hurry to get through it
One day the war will stop
and we'll grow a peaceful crop..." etc.
(from indigo girls, 'trouble')

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Success

"And I said to it, 'Success,
I didn't recognize you at first.'
And I said to it, 'Success,

you don't look the way I have dreamed of you,
dreamed of you...'"
--erin mckeown, 'fast as i can'


I have moved into a new apartment in Greenpoint, the fabulously situated and mightily Polish Brooklyn neighborhood I adore. The struggle for this apartment may be just this side of "worth it." The struggle was due largely to the evil, laughable excuse for an apartment broker which did precious little of value for me, and which instead gave me heart palpitations at every turn. In hindsight, however, it makes a great story, one that I will relate in a future post but can't quite comment on yet. You'll like it though, I promise. It's a good story. Anyway, hurrah, here we are. In a series of fortuitous events, Brian and I both ended up needing to move out of the places in which we previously lived on October 1, and so for the moment, we are the newest residents of Box Street. Lovely!

The apartment is on the north end of Greenpoint, giving us fabulous proximity to Greenpoint, Long Island City, other parts of Brooklyn and Queens, the G train, the 7 train, Manhattan, and the Long Island Rail Road. I actually feel delighted when I think about coming home from wherever I happen to find myself. This is probably a combination of the apartment and the Brian. Fun times.

But the two weeks leading up to move-in were so stressful! As late as 24 hours before I moved in, the joke of a realty firm was still throwing me for anguished loops and casting doubt on whether I'd have a place to live, the jerky bastards. During the apartment search, I sorely neglected running, reading, concentrating on school, healthy sleep/eating habits, and this blog, among other things. So I am all about turning over a new leaf for October.

Then again, many who know me already know all about my whole theory of October = renewal. October brings seasonal change and renewal from the earth in a way that appeals to me even more than spring. It's harvest time, a chance to reap what we've sown. In my own life it always seems to be October when I do things like quit jobs, decide to move across/out of the country, and have various other assorted epiphanies. Furthermore, my family has seen October bring death and birth and poignant lessons about the circle of life. Finally, who can say anything bad about a month that has the World Series, is basically good weather for wearing hoodies the entire time, randomly lets you get an extra hour of sleep one weekend, and culminates with a holiday devoted to having fun, getting dressed up, and indulging fantasies of emotion, decadence, and copious amounts of refined sugar?

So yeah. I love Octobers. Including this one. This month also happens to be the 2nd birthday of my blog. Don't think I won't have a birthday party for it, either. You just watch.

Today I went running. I ran eight miles. My last two Saturday long runs disappeared into the three-week chaos of apartment hunting and such. I am so happy to have got back into my running schedule this past week, and today's run, though hot and a little difficult, felt great. I gave myself permission to take a week or so off after my 5K, but three weeks of sporadic running was less than OK. Speaking of the 5K, I ran it in 27:21, ably beating my goal of 28:44. If anyone cares, I finished 70th overall out of 244 runners, and I finished 7th in my division (females ages 30-39) out of I'm not sure how many, but there were at least a couple dozen of us.

As long as I'm doing the humbers, here are some more: my aunt sent along this link to test your "Real Age." I think I've done something like this quiz before, but probably a few years ago. I took the test again and it told me my Real Age is only 18.4, meaning I'm healthy and stuff. It also told me that I have a life expectancy of 87.6 years. To the extent that we believe what we learn from online quizzes, woo-hoo!

USC remains undefeated. (editor's note, tuesday 10/9: would that i had got around to posting this when i originally wrote it on saturday before USC's numbers became a bit dismal. whatever, stanford!) The Diamondbacks and the Red Sox are both doing their part to deliver up a Boston-Arizona World Series, much to the delight of me and several other members of my family. The sun is shining, the birds are singing. I like things.

Including school, still. In fact, I like school a lot. A whole lot. I was actually rather sad during the evil-apartment-broker time to not be able to give school the focus and energy it wants from me, and that I wanted to give it. I'm still learning many things there and still appreciating my professors more and more every day and still marveling at how much better the second year is than the first. And how much better life is living in Brooklyn instead of on Long Island. Seriously, people. SERiously.

I love everything in the world.

"In a strange bed, strange bed,
bedfellow strange.

Said it to me what they've always said,
said it to me what I've always heard,
'You're gonna make it,
you're gonna make it,
you're gonna make it, girl.
Girl, you sleep with success tonight."

--more of our girl Erin's 'fast as i can'