Lost, War, Good, Evil

So while I absolutely love to watch Lost, you may have noticed a distinct lack of posting on this blog about Lost theories. When I consider writing about this amazing show, I run into one problem: I am waaaaaay out of my league.

I have really come to care about Lost, since that 2004 day when we of the old Borders Westwood crew tuned in to see this random new ABC show, but my brain is just not at the level of the devotees who scrutinize and dissect each and every word. And most of the fans who develop theories support those theories with really, really specific supporting details. Who am I kidding? I'm lucky that I watch it with Brian, because he remembers every face and event, and sometimes I have to ask him who a character is when s/he recurs, like, two seasons later. (Brian's good at that outside of the Lost world, too. He can see an actor with two lines on a TV show and pick them out three years later in a bit part in some movie, and tell you the commercial they did in between. Not me; I'm more the type to confuse famous actors and be like, "Where do I know her from?") So yeah.

Nor am I any more than a casual reader of Doc Jensen's column or Lostpedia or any of the other post-game analysis. I think maybe I approach all that stuff the same way I think of Cliffs Notes, or commercial outlines in law school. Which is to say I think they are for weaklings. I know they're not exactly the same thing as Lost junkies, but it's a similar kind of judgmental take on the matter: if I can't "get" the meaning from watching the show, then I somehow don't deserve to or something. Actually, flip that around, because it's more like the literary analyst/English teacher in me who thoroughly enjoys talking about the story, but is loathe to admit I would actually need someone else to explain it to me ... even though I probably do ... Also, I am wary of some sources. Like, I'll read a trusted professor or admired novelist's ideas about Moby Dick, but have disdain for some "commoner's" opinion. I sound like a snob?! I totally am, I think. But the joke is totally on me, because the people who read those know what's going on, and I really probably don't, at least not as much. I still think less of customers who came into Borders to buy Cliffs Notes the night before their papers were due, though. Especially when they wanted Cliffs Notes for, like, Of Mice and Men, and we were sold out, and they wanted you to call another store to find them. I'm like, "Of Mice and Men is not that long, you idiot! The time you're wasting trying to buy the Cliffs Notes, you could read the book!" That's why it's not a perfect analogy -- Lost fans at least aren't looking for a substitute for their show, and definitely not trying to make it easier. It's all about making it more complicated.

Anyway the POINT of all this (I have one!) is that you don't really see me posting Lost theories here. But I will say this: as we wend our way through the final season, there is some question about which one of Jacob or the Man in Black is the "good side" and the "bad side." There are also those fools who for some reason like or trust Ben (best Ilana line ever, in response to his question of why she didn't believe him: "Because you're speaking") and think he could possibly be "good" in opposition to Charles Widmore's "bad." Only now all those people are confused as to whether both Ben and Widmore and their "sides" are against the MIB, and they are both on the "same" "side" somehow ... etc. etc.

Needless to say I haven't dissected all any of this or read about it online, but this is what I hope: You're all wrong! (with potential to be right) Or, to put it in Clue terms, "They ALL did it!" I want it to work out that when "war comes to this island" it's like when war comes to this rock we all live on (Earth) and nobody is right, and everyone's wrong. I want it to be that the "right" people are the ones who lay down their weapons and realize you can't "win." I want it to be that Ben is wrong, wrong, wrong for all his lying, manipulating and killing, but that Widmore is also wrong for using other people for his purposes and keeping Desmond and Penny apart, but that Dogen is also wrong for holding back answers and trying to off Sayid, and so on. I want the person who is "right" if there is a "right" to be revealed to be the peacemaker(s), but not anyone who took sides. Which, if you think about it, could very well be the candidates, although Sayid and Sawyer have done very bad things. But, they are so primed for redemption, in my opinion. (Sayid went to build houses with a Habitat-for-Humanity-like group! Of COURSE he was redeemed!) And they always seemed to act for themselves instead of taking sides.

Part of why I want all this to happen is that I want it to be a giant "F!@$%*" to religion and specifically violence in the name of religion and/or the misguided notion that "war" is "right." I mean, even to the point that Sayid, conveniently the "evil" Iraqi "torturer" of the show, but who is clearly smart, capable of many things, and very awesome, could be a symbol of how stupid people in the U.S. are for scapegoating Iraq for all their problems (while stealing Iraq's oil).

I have had little patience for people (Brian, mostly, I suppose) when they justify Ben's dastardly deeds or anyone else's by saying they did it for the island. I want the whole point of this to be that whenever humans start justifying actions that are wrong (namely, killing and lying, as well as a whole lot of kidnapping) in the name of some "greater purpose," be it an island, God, or whatever else, then they are wrong. But when they do good things, they are right.

Of course this doesn't even begin to get into the flash sideways, whether exploding the bomb worked, or my favorite (ahem), the time travel. Or why dead people communicate with Miles, or what the numbers mean, or or or or or or ... anything else for that matter. And, I can almost guarantee that my preferred philosophy is so not even close to what will actually happen on the show. Which is why I should go back to not bothering to write about it in the first place.

"We're sculptured from youth; the chipping away makes me weary.
And as for the truth, it seems like we just pick a theory,
The one that justifies our daily lives..."
--indigo girls, 'deconstruction of love'

Thursday Television Trash

Q: What do you get when you combine The Deep End and Jersey Shore?
A: Hofstra Law School.

Oh, don't worry, it doesn't need to be funny. It's true.

International courts

My girl Hillary, in Nairobi, expressed regret once again that the United States is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court treaty. We talked a lot about the ICC during law school (where, as you know, I was of the International Law concentration). For those who have absolutely no idea what the ICC is, think roughly a permanent court for things like Judgment at Nuremberg and/or somewhere to try, for example, perpetrators of the Rwanda genocide.

Many people are opposed to the U.S. becoming a signatory (= submitting to its jurisdiction) to this ICC treaty, including more likely than not one of your state's politicians. And it takes two-thirds of the Senate to ratify a treaty, as you may recall from AP History class. There are many valid things to say about the benefits, flaws, and intricacies of international institutions and I won't get into all of them here and now; what I will question is one argument against the court that has been presented often and was noted again today. Some people oppose the ICC because they don't like the prospect of U.S. soldiers being tried there for war crimes.

Why is this argument presented/taken seriously? We don't want to allow this court jurisdiction over us because then "they" would try "our" soldiers? Um, hello? What's good enough for the rest of the world is apparently not good enough for us. Does it occur to these people that maybe our U.S. soldiers should not be committing war crimes in the first place?!

This infuriated me every time we discussed it in law school, and it infuriates me now. Instead of arguing against torture, war crimes, murder of civilians, etc., the blowhards Congresspeople and their minions constituents shudder to think of their "heroes" (criminal soldiers) having to be accountable for what they have done.

No pillar of salt, I

As is the case many a day this summer, I am sitting at my mother's dining room table which I have sort of commandeered for my little "office," from which I organize my life, pay bills, make grand plans, figure out stuff, apply for jobs, seek new opportunities, and just generally plot the next big move ... and it is also where I write!

Writing has taken on many forms this summer, but among other things I have been cruising along on the old familiar Cuba project as well as toying with some other ideas. The main things I have "learned" by having this little stay-at-mom's-for-two-months-while-traveling-and-writing interlude are 1)yes, I would be content to live the solitary life of a writer working from home, provided there are plenty of chances to go to happy hours sprinkled in there and 2)it takes an extraordinary amount of discipline and organization to work from home; I daresay it can be even more work than working from work.

Now, especially about the latter, this is not a request for condescending I-told-you-so comments about how the full-time writing grass is always greener, and it is particularly not an invitation for comments about writing a book or working from home from those who have also never done it before. Just getting that out of the way. Discussing it, however, I find endlessly fascinating. Working with only self-imposed structure is terribly interesting. It's almost like a chemistry experiment, and you see what has a tendency to float to the top of your mental test tube. And by the way, this grass IS greener. Way greener than law school, or Borders, to name a few.

Through the miracle of Facebook I have been privileged to read at least a dozen updates a day from former classmates who are bursting with the stress of their impending doom bar exam next week and I daily marvel at how far away that world seems. I was trying to think of other experiences that are like that. When I came back from Korea, I was totally aware of not being in Korea. For months. I was nodding and bowing and trying to hand my money to the 7-11 clerk with both hands, and it took a while to get used to the U.S. of A. again. Other travels and experiences have lingered in various ways. Sometimes even a concert or book remains mentally present. But law school? It is just ... GONE. I seriously don't think about it until I read the next Facebook status update about someone's bar review stress. It's bizarre.

Meanwhile, I still pepper my conversation with various legal concepts, think about things I learned, despise Long Island, and have my email open all the time on my computer screen, including my @hofstra.edu email. But I have so mentally moved on from the awfulness that I guess I can offer that as some kind of hope to those who are still in the thick of it: it is TOTALLY possible to move on and not look back. At least for now. I will let you know if this remains true when the student loan grace period ends.

Off with her head covering!

I hereby provide a link to an article from the ABA Journal about a recent Michigan Supreme Court ruling that gives judges the power to require witnesses to remove head or facial coverings in their courtrooms. Sounds simple enough, you say? Well, as with many things, this controversy started because of an illogical and unfair request masquerading as "religious freedom."

The ACLU, with whom I have been known to agree more often than not but not this time, wanted the aforementioned Michigan Rule of Evidence giving judges that power to contain an exception for religious dress. Why? This all started when a Muslim woman brought a small claims lawsuit, refused to remove her religious veil so the judge could see her face, and then had her lawsuit dismissed.

I took Religion and the Constitution for about three weeks this last semester of law school before I had to drop it for life schedule reasons. Those were three of the most interesting weeks of my life. It helped that the professor is a genius who doesn't take shit from whiny law students (of which there are many), but the material itself is always fascinating. People asserting their so-called Constitutional rights to freedom of religion are some of the most logically flawed people on Earth -- and I have serious doubts as to whether any of them have read our Founding Fathers' document, let alone understood it.

The plain and simple fact is that often -- as is the case here -- your religious beliefs are irrelevant. I don't care if they are protected, marginalized, nearly universal, offensive, or what. They are just irrelevant. The judge needs to see your face, s/he makes a rule about attire in the courtroom, you BRING A LAWSUIT availing yourself of said courtroom -- well, guess what? Take off your stupid veil.

Yes, I called it a stupid veil. It is stupid. It is also not a holy, divine, required thing, despite what some people will tell you. The Muslim veil, in particular, is totally misunderstood in the West, but those who've read my blog for a while know that I am fascinated by head coverings in all religions. Jewish, Catholic, Sikh, Mormon ... there are so many religions that have this weird fetish with covering (or shaving) the head, and I can never get any sort of an answer as to why. I mean, I can never get any sort of an answer that actually answers the question when I ask why. I sigh, realizing yet again that religious people tend to not be terribly concerned with logic when they answer questions; it's such a shame. Why not have a logical discussion about covering the head when you go to Mass, or go into the temple? Is there something wrong with having a logical discussion about it? We can analyze all kinds of things in this society: sports, news events, consumer behavior, traffic violations. But if I analyze a religious tradition it's infringing on some "right" you have to your belief? I don't think so!

Furthermore, let us not let the word "veil" obscure the fact that this woman's covering hid not just her scalp and hair, but her face.

Rules exist in society because that is how we have and maintain a society in the first place. I have no patience for people who insist upon religious exceptions to the rules. Screw that. If it's OK for you to have an exception, then everyone should get an exception and we should get rid of the rule. In this case, Michigan is not getting rid of the rule, and you have to take off your veil if you want to testify in court. Just as I have to take off my baseball cap or ski mask. Hurrah!

I am so proud of the Michigan Supreme Court, and I roll my eyes at the two dissenters.

Adventures

So about this whole not-taking-the-bar-exam thing: I find it really funny how quickly law school has gone out-of-sight-out-of-mind for me. Every day I read messages or status updates from (former) classmates who are back in New York slogging through their bar review courses, and each time I have to sort of remind myself that a mere fifty or sixty days ago I was right there with them, in that elitist club of misery known as law school, staring at computer screens and cases and cites and convoluted phrases, questioning my sanity. And now here I am in the Southwest desert, a place that will always be home for me on many levels no matter how far I roam, and the whole law school thing just seems so far, far away.

But the thing is, I don't think it's just the physical distance from Long Island that makes Hofstra seem so far off. It's not that. It's more like driving down a freeway. Everyone is going 65 or 70 mph, and I took an exit. They are out of sight and off in the distance in mere seconds.

This would probably be a good time to have some profound looking-back-on-all-I've-learned kind of moment, but it's really not that simple, nor that grandiose. But I am trying to regroup, recharge, and rethink what to do next. Those who knew me three years+ ago, which is most of my adoring fans? I think, should recall my m.o.: always thinking about what could be next, always dreaming about what's around the corner, always listing a dozen adventures that I want to pursue in the next year and then kind of letting them fall and float and sift through themselves until something emerges on top.

As for the practical realities, Brian and I did have to move out of our adored Brooklyn 'hood and our lovely Box It Up existence, at least for the summer. That was a funding issue, not an all-out rejection of New York City. However, I am considering being employed elsewhere this fall, with the usual chief contenders: Washington D.C. (the city to which I've always meant to move, although I keep accidentally moving to other East Coast cities instead), Chicago (the obvious choice, it seems, after stints in Los Angeles and New York), San Francisco (California - swoon! - but still a place I haven't lived), and Abroad (just in general - more on that in a second). Of course those top choices are followed by my favorite destination: anywhere!

I have a certain freedom I haven't had in a while. I want to throw a dart at the map and move to the city where it lands. There are two things stopping me from doing exactly that tomorrow: 1)I don't have a car, so I have to either move to a public transportation city or wait until I buy a car and then fling that dart 2)I'm not certain Brian wants to throw a dart. At least not literally. He's adventurous and tries new things (such as Ethiopian food - more on that in a second, too) but he is slightly more meticulous than just literally throwing a dart. But I would do it literally, see. I really would. Maybe I will throw the dart, just for amusement's sake, the same way I take Facebook quizzes about "What ___ suits you best?" You know, just to see what the dart oracle has to say.

Meanwhile, back to those thats about which I promised more in a second... OK, Destination Abroad. I am definitely thinking about living abroad again, which would then coincide nicely with my plan in which I give myself permission to move back to California only if I first live abroad again for an entire year. While I am fully aware that the next item on my Life's Things to Do List after "Teach English in Asia" and "Go to law school" is "Join the Peace Corps," that one is also sort of simmering on the back burner for some of the reasons mentioned above but also because I am leaning more towards working abroad and not just volunteering. What I mean by that of course is earning more than just a volunteer's stipend. I am still very pro-Peace Corps, though, hence the simmering. But I would not mind a job abroad and to that end, I have taken the Foreign Service exam, and am waiting to hear if Hillary wants to hire me to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba (that is, if I passed the written test and get to move on to the next stage). I am all kinds of ready to get hired by the State Department and have my first gig at an overseas post. I just need them to see that they really want to hire me.

About the trying new things, such as Ethiopian food. Today Lesley (my sister), Brian and I went out to lunch at Taste of India, our go-to Indian lunch buffet restaurant when I come to Phoenix. Well, at least ever since our first go-to Indian lunch buffet restaurant closed down. Lesley and I both adore Indian food, and Lesley is surrounded here by people who won't eat it, such as her husband, his entire family, our parents, her kids, and so on. When I come to town, we make it a point to go eat it. Yum! Of course, Brian also likes Indian food so now that he is also here in Phoenix, we all went as a trio. While we were there we got to talking about the adventure of trying new cuisines. My sister and I have long been known to seek out the various ethnic restaurants in Phoenix (that's how we discovered our love for Indian food), and on two of my recent trips here we sampled an Ethiopian restaurant near ASU and the simply and to-the-pointly titled Baghdad Food. We were telling Brian about those places as well as some of the places we went in high school/college when we first began sampling all Phoenix has to offer, and then Lesley shared a story.

One of Lesley's nephews who went on a mission to West Africa and served in Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast, and maybe another country or two, I forget what all she said. Probably Ghana, since it's right in the middle of the countries I just mentioned. Anyway, he came back after two years doing West Africa things and a little while ago he was here in Arizona among my brother-in-law's large, Mormon, somewhat sheltered family. Not all of them, and not totally sheltered, but, well, yeah. Somewhat sheltered. So returned missionary nephew found a market in Phoenix somewhere with all the African goods, bought the requisite ingredients and spices, and made some undoubtedly intriguing and possibly delicious dish he had learned to make while there. And what do you think happened? My sister and only about three others could be persuaded to even try it. UGH.

I mean, picky eaters are one thing. (My sister's kids, ages three and five, are kind of ridiculous on that score. But I harbor hopes that they will outgrow at least some of their picky tastes. They're young yet.) And avoiding, say, one item or maybe two is acceptable. Like being allergic to seaweed, for example. But this was actually more than that, and the more-than-that was my sister's point in telling us the story in the first place. Here was this giant family (my brother-in-law has lots of siblings and they all have kids, and his parents each has even more siblings, and so forth) and yet only a handful of people can shake off the fear of trying something exotic. That's the crux of this, and the thing that bugs me. Kids avoid trying new foods. Snobs avoid trying unhealthy or inorganic or whatever foods. But sheltered people avoid trying foods that they perceive to be exotic. But why?

No, really. Why?

If we accept such jingoism in our palates I don't suppose we should ever be surprised by any national belligerence in political attitudes, either.

Megacheesesteaks

So I've been having some really weird and not just weird but also crazily vivid dreams over the last couple of weeks. In that sense, finishing law school is sort of like taking a malaria pill. All kinds of weird things have been happening in the dreams with travels, spiders, junior high teachers, mountainous roads, and more; thankfully, though, at least I seem to have stopped dreaming that either I or Brian has killed someone -- usually accidentally but always in some sort of compromising circumstance -- which I believe came from when I was watching episode after episode of Breaking Bad. Which is a fantastic show. We Netflixed the first season, of course, and then we recorded a bunch of season 2 but did not get all the way through it before we got rid of our cable stations. So I'm totally left hanging on how season 2 will end. Spoil not, please!

The thing about the weird dreams is that I am SO RELIEVED to wake up and figure out that whatever force with which I was contending no longer poses any threat to me. Bug dreams, that is always the case. Such a relief to get out of those. And the manslaughter ones were psychologically devastating to the point that it would take a while for me, even after waking, to realize that this guilt and terrible secret I was carrying inside were totally not based on reality. I find it so strange that dreams can affect my waking self that way.

It happens with minor threats, too, though. For example, earlier this week Brian and I went to Philadelphia for the day, which, yay! because hello, I had been there only once on a road trip and that SO briefly, as in, here let's-slow-the-car-and-watch-the-sunset-so we-can-kind-of-say-we-were-in-Philadelphia briefly. This time I actually SAW the city, which I loved (knew I would!) and I also finally saw the Liberty Bell. I had been pretty disappointed in myself for living a mere two hours down the road the past three years and never going there, but then again, I was hanging out with Long Islanders who have been known to call Pennsylvania "out West" so comparatively I didn't really feel guilty about anything to do with U.S. travel/geography at all. Here's an example of how much a Long Islander cares about the rest of the United States. This is a 100% true direct quote overheard by me on the Hofstra shuttle bus. The speaker was a dumb Hofstra student on her cell phone (double ugh): "So, he bought me a ticket to, like, I don't know. California or Colorado -- um, what's the one with all the mountains?" True story. Seriously.

So the other reason we went to Philly was for some authentic Philly cheesesteak (now that I am a lapsed vegetarian, I eat special meat on special occasions, occasionally), stemming from an incident LAST SUMMER in which we saw this fun documentary called This Is My Cheesesteak about four of the greatest places in the city to get the signature food. We even got t-shirts that say "This is my cheesesteak." This has been a long-simmering desire. Anyway, we saw the Liberty Bell, Independence Mall/Hall, City Hall, many streets, historical alleys, the river, a fun pub, and so forth, not to mention two of the best cheesesteak places (duh, one for lunch and one for dinner). The verdict -- I'm a fan of Pat's Famous Steaks, I gotta say.

What this means is that we walked and walked and walked and walked. I am a daily walker all around town and I was still tired after all the miles we walked in Philadelphia. Walking and walking and walking and cheesesteaking and walking and walking and walking some more. That night when we got home I was drifting off seconds after my head hit the pillow and apparently started dreaming right away (scientists, what gives?) because a few minutes later Brian was still talking to me but he woke me from a dream in which we were stuck in Philly. In the dream, we somehow couldn't get our return bus that night and were totally stressing finding somewhere to sleep there. But really we were home. I was so delighted that he asked me something to wake me up so that I could stop worrying about finding somewhere to sleep.

See, weird, right? I mean, it's no Nightmare on Elm Street or anything but it is totally starting to be a pain in the ass to deal with whatever thing it is I have to deal with in my dreams lately, and get all worked up, only to finally wake up and have wasted all that energy. Not that it's energy, exactly, in my dreams, but I'm finding myself kind of fatigued lately too, so maybe it is. Can you expend energy in your dreams? I have never really thought about this before. The mind boggles.

I can't let this blog entry end without giving props to the Megabus. I have taken it from New York to Washington D.C. (for our Supreme Court trip! Hi Ruth B G!) and Boston and now Philadelphia. It is the latest competitor to the Bolt Bus, Chinatown buses, and of course the dastardly Greyhound. The great thing about Megabus (and Bolt, but I'm finding it more available on the Mega) is that the earliest purchasers get their tickets for a dollar! One dollar! It all depends on availability, so if you're far enough in advance you can find several to many dollar seats on any given day; as it gets closer and the trips book up the prices can go up to $3, or $8, or maybe $15 or $18. I adore the Megabus. Basically, it cost Brian and me the same to go to Philly as the subway ride into Manhattan and back. Plus, many of their trips have double decker buses with headphone jacks to drown out annoying cell phone people and blue seats. Swoon!

Hi!

Well, it has been a while since I blogged. I guess that's what happens when one is busy graduating from law school! That's right, the deed is done. I am the proud owner of a J.D. I guess "owner" is all right to say, seeing as it came at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars -- much of which has actually not yet been paid, and is currently accumulating interest. Student loans -- gotta love 'em! But why dwell on that now? This is the grace period! A time for reflection, pride, joy, sense of accomplishment, and "HOLY CRAP DID I REALLY JUST GO TO LAW SCHOOL?!"

There have been so many amazing people supporting me in this law school endeavor and I am so glad that they (well, most of them) turned out to celebrate with a big party in our back yard on Saturday. Old friends, new friends, and good times around the grill! Then Sunday it was time for the actual ceremony, when more than a dozen tried and true friends and family members schlepped out to Hofstra on Long Island to witness the commencement. They were a fabulous cheering section.

The whole experience was kind of what I imagine and am told a wedding is like: so much is going on that it's actually hard to take it all in, and you have to remind yourself to concentrate on the things being said to commemorate the moment. And there are a zillion people from your past around and it's hard to find individual moments with them all, plus you find yourself saying the same thing over and over in response to the "So, what's next?" Also very wedding-like.

Despite the ups and downs of Hofstra (and more specifically, Long Island) life, I really enjoyed my graduation day. I like the law school dean and many of the professors, and I liked gathering with my friends and sitting there reveling in what we had all just accomplished. Senator Schumer was a nice surprise, too. And I like the pomp and circumstance.

Boy am I tired! Time for some rest ... but stay tuned to see what will be the next thrilling adventure!

Three, two, one...

Three more papers.

All that stands between me and being entirely done with law school: three more papers.

The papers are long, they are half-written, they need revision and cite-checking and more sources and more arguments and less straw men and, just generally, more blood, sweat and tears.

And then, after the three papers, a light glows at the end of this long dark tunnel. I am diligently wading through the papers, toward that light.

Be there soon!

What's on my mind

The end of law school sneaks up on you. I know some people who have been counting the days all semester, but I didn't plunge into the countdown as early as them because 1.I have a tendency to get kind of all-consumed by the countdown once I am in it (see e.g. Korea) and 2.I do like to live in the moment, actually.

I mean, we're already going to look back at law school and wonder where it all went so there's no point in wishing it away even faster!

That said, I do have a sense of impending freedom and I am telling myself "Only two more weeks" when I think about having to write papers -- because that means in only two more weeks I don't have to write any more of these papers.

Mostly, though, I have a giant case of the Now What?s. Lots of my classmates have the same thing, apparently because they are trying to find jobs and not having any luck due to the economy, the legal profession, and the entire New York job market just sort of imploding. Since I am not looking at law practice jobs and not necessarily looking in New York I mostly just worry about the fact that there are so many opportunities in the world and things to do that it is hard to pick one and it feels like in deciding I am letting others slip away! So, that is the same as before law school.

I am getting, to speak frankly, a lot of shit from people who don't understand why I am not taking the bar exam. I am so tired of hearing about the bar exam. It is for people who want to practice law -- isn't it? So, then.

There seems to be particularly no reason to take the bar exam in New York when one has no way to pay rent in New York for the two and a half months from graduation until bar exam. Let alone when one has no intention of practicing law in New York after wasting that time and money. It is so hard to find good advice about this.

I want to go everywhere!

And I am rather dismayed at how many people have slacked off on their blogging.

There you have it, folks. That's what's on my mind.

Procrastination is the cruelest month

The problem with procrastination, of course, is that -- much like a chocolate bunny -- it can never last. Today I have come to the end of this semester's allowable procrastination and have reached the point where I have to actually start working on the three 20-to-30-page papers that I have to write this semester. Well, I say "have to" although of course one does not "have to" actually do anything; one must simply face the consequences of not doing the thing. In this case I *could* just never write any of the papers, but the consequence would be that I do not graduate (yet?) from law school, and $100,000 later I'm pretty sure I want to just graduate and so I am going to write the papers.

Now there are two important questions to ask about my dread of writing these papers. One is about the writing and one is about the procrastination. First, the writing: why do I so loathe and detest writing law school research papers? I mean, I've procrastinated writing papers all my life, from that 6th grade country report on Switzerland right on through my undergraduate English major analysis of King Lear, but it wasn't because I hated writing them. I just loved procrastinating more. In law school I actually loathe writing the papers. I think it is because they go hand in hand with legal research. Legal research, to me, is only slightly more preferable than stabbing myself in the eye with a toothpick.

As for the second question, that of procrastination itself, I find myself once again wondering not why do I procrastinate (I've sort of given up on that one) but why did I procrastinate so much less when I lived in Korea? It was uncanny how different I was there. I just did things. There seemed to be no reason to wait. Why? What happened to me there that made me behave so forthrightly and productively, and why can't I get that back?

This and more will I ponder as I work on paper # 1: my Supreme Court opinion for Fake Supreme Court class. It is an apparently gorgeous day outside: I can see the sun streaming through my window even though I've been trapped inside here surrounded by stacks of legal crap. Good thing I don't really care for spring. (I'm more into summer and winter; spring is just a bi-polar, half-assed tease.) Then again, if only I did yearn to be outside springing then I could use that as a reward for myself...I will have to think of some other system of rewards. Should I get a reward after every page or every five pages?

Doom and gloom and bar examinings

Dismal. I am shaping up to have quite the dismal track record this year of blogging great thoughts. Sadly, I fear it is because I am lacking in great thoughts altogether; it's not that I'm not thinking them and just keeping them from my adoring fans. (ha) And, I know, who wants to start yet another blog entry lamenting that I've gone a week since the last post again? But ugh. So, why have I done it? What great and marvelous acts are keeping me from the bloggage? It is spring break. But that can't be why.

I am pretty excited about spring break, though. I previously mentioned how ridiculous the timing of our spring break is this semester, but it's finally here and I am SO thrilled to be on vacation that I have even started to stop being bitter about not being able to travel anywhere. (Started to stop? Hmmm.) I am SO thrilled, in fact, that I am seriously considering not looking at Facebook for the rest of the week because there are too many law school people on there, who continue to blather about law school -- even on spring break!

Speaking of not talking about law school, I have to continue to talk about it to explain part of why I'm so happy not thinking about it. That doesn't really make any sense, but just go with it. About a week and a half ago I finally decided realized that I am not going to take the New York bar exam this summer. And it was like a moment of clarity. A thing of beauty. I felt like a new person. Really, I felt lighter. I felt like I knew myself again. It has been very difficult for me to get anything resembling advice from anyone at Hofstra about whether to take the bar exam and whether to take the New York bar exam , because they are so caught up in law world that they can't objectively determine whether it is the right choice for any one person. It's just what everyone does: graduate from law school, begin reviewing for bar exam the next day. But if everyone jumped off a cliff, etc. Add to that the dose of Long Island Syndrome which prevents about 60% of my school (maybe more) from realizing there are in fact about 45,000 other places to live in the world and REALLY no one can understand why not take the New York bar exam. But I - I have never wanted to be a lawyer, really. I just wanted to study international law. And I have done that. And I have said from the beginning that I don't want to be a lawyer. So why did I get so caught up in the bar exam frenzy? And the New York inertia?

I feel like I got the best advice from a friend who is no part of Hofstra but who has been working as a big firm corporate lawyer in Manhattan for eight years. She stated, "If you are even thinking of not practicing law in New York, you probably shouldn't take the New York bar exam. Why would you suffer through that and then just leave?" It sounds simple, but try getting anyone in a law school to say it. They have a lot invested in people passing the bar exam. But that's just because they want to have higher bar passage rates so they move up in the U.S. News law school rankings and make more money. Law schools are all about making a profit.

Anyway, the point is that I make more sense to myself when I think about not wasting three months and not borrowing six thousand more dollars just to do something that has no purpose. When I could be finding a job. A job that I actually can do. Hello, McFly?

So spring break. Not so springy, I might add. We did have one lovely weather day, on Sunday. Brian's parents visited for a couple days and we took advantage of the nice day with a trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, near Prospect Park. That is a good part of Brooklyn. I like the park and I adore botanic gardens, and it was lovely to stroll there.

Also dismal, Michigan State's loss last night in the national championship game. It was dismal partly because we watched the game at Blondie's and then when it was over the regular game-watching excursions to Blondie's also ended, and all the Michigan State alumni left, depressed, saying, "See you in football season." Brian and I were two of the last group left sitting there, not feeling compelled to rush out in the mass people-who-have-to-get-up-for-9-to-5-jobs exodus. And that probably made me feel even more dismal, maybe even pathetic: it was as if I were willing there to be a celebration where in fact there was none. And then the usually reliable 7 train took forever when we were going home. Dismal.

But today is another day, another vacation day, another day of National Poetry Month (I'm writing a poem a day, as are hundreds of others), and another chance at productivity and sunshine.

Fools

It is with some trepidation that I note April in my near future. Tomorrow, in fact. We all know April is the cruelest month, etc. (thanks for the enlightenment T.S.!) and more often than not I find that apart from the start of baseball season a lot of bad things happen in April and all I do is wait for the May flowers to show up. What can you say about a month that is ushered in with the only occasion that really gives Valentine's Day a run for its stupidity money? ("Today let's all lie to one another and then laugh about it!") June actually tends to suck, too. Boo, April and June, but yay for March and May. So it's sad that today is the last day of March.

However, that does also bring me reeeeeeeally close to the end of this semester and the end of my law school experience. Approaching the end of the law school experience gives me a lot to contemplate. For example, the fact that I seriously have to return to Long Island only a dozen or so more times EVER is pretty damn great. Also, the fact that I will be able to read read read novels novels novels again, without even the tiniest hint of a suggestion that I should consider feeling guilty about not reading for school instead. Recently, of course, I have pretty much said "oh well" to the guilt and started reading whatever I want again, and I suppose I was always doing more leisure reading (1-3 books per semester on average) than my fellow law students. But that's probably the most awesome thing about law school being almost over.

Coming soon, I'll share my thoughts on the bar exam or lack thereof.

Stockard, irrational human behavior, and me

So. Then. This has been a doozy of a last few days, only I just realized it today. For those who don't know this about me (uh--is there anyone?), I like to think about things. And I also like to think about myself and how I relate to things. This would explain why figuring out what to do with my life is for me more of a hobby than any sort of finite goal. Anyway, in reading for my Negotiation Seminar today (I love that class) I was confronted with a clear demonstration of the sort of eternal puzzle that is human interaction.

First, the weekend. Well, specifically Sunday: Jenn, Brian, and I attended a Broadway show, Pal Joey, starring Stockard Channing and Martha Plimpton. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought they were both amazing, as was the star Matthew Risch, who played Joey. He was an understudy, who took over during previews when the star was injured! How amazing for him! Anyway, fyi, Martha Plimpton can SING. And Stockard Channing, well, she is just fantastic all the time and I was so excited after we got seriously cheap theater tickets to find out I'd be seeing her show.

Probably the most famous song from Pal Joey is "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," although I hereby confess I did not even know it was from this musical, or any musical. It made so much more sense to us in context. In the playbill profile of Stockard Channing she talks about what it was like to sing this famous song that everybody knows as "just a song," whether sung by Doris Day or Rosemary Clooney or whoever, and she talks about approaching it as her character, Vera's, monologue, and that the audience should be following her every line and seeing the conflict in her. Boy, does she pull it off. She is in bed with this man and she knows, she knows, that he is no good and she mustn't fall for him, and even going in with eyes wide open, as it were, she still falls for him and, specifically, mistakenly, lets him get to her.

Good drama. Back to Negotiation: we study in this seminar the ways in which people bargain, get what they want, and try to resolve conflict. I have a million interesting stories from the readings in there, but I'll stick to just one today. In a study people were presented with the question of an impending disease outbreak, let's say an Asian bird flu type of thing, that is expected to kill 600 people. Which of these two alternative programs would you favor? If Program A is adopted, 200 will be saved. If Program B is adopted, there's a one-third probability all will be saved and a two-thirds probability none will be saved.

Well, 76% chose Program A, and 24% chose Program B. In other words, saving 200 lives for certain was more highly valued than taking a risk, even though the risk has the same "expected value" (I often loathe those economics terms, but meaning that the value of a 1/3 chance of saving all = 1/3 of all = 200 out of 600, that is, the same as the definite # in A. The subjects of the study did not want to take a risk.

But here's the good part! Ready? They also asked a group of subjects the same premise, with the following two options: If Program A is adopted, 400 people will die. If Program B is adopted, there is a one-third probability no one will die and a two-thirds probability all will die. And this time, only 13% chose A and 87% chose B! These subjects chose the risk-taking alternative.

Why? Objectively they are the same. But when it is framed differently, in terms of lives saved (gains) or lives lost (losses), it was enough to shift the majority of the people from risk-averse to risk-taking. Why?

So then I thought about this in terms of myself. Negotiation professor is always encouraging us to look at the negotiations in our lives that happen every day, from "Where are we going for dinner?" to hiring someone to do the flowers at your wedding. Today when I read that story, I thought about myself, my rational/irrational behavior, and whether I take risks. When I read the choices the first time around, I -- unlike apparently 76% of people -- was inclined to choose Program B, and take the risk. Does that make me risk-seeking? Irrational? Is there any difference for me between my willingness to risk when there are losses and not gains at stake?

Personalizing, let's say my student loan is running out, Brian is unemployed, and we've got to do amazing feats of budgeting in order to be able to pay rent for the rest of the semester. Meanwhile, my spring break is coming up and I really want to be able to go on a trip for my last spring break of law school, and I want Brian to come with me. It upsets me greatly to have to cover more than my share of the rent, but I am perfectly OK with paying for Brian's "share" of a spring break trip so that we can go.

Is this irrational? I didn't think it was, and I said as much: my wanting Brian to come on the trip is selfish, not just paying "for" him. I want us to go a-traveling. So, even the economists should be pleased: it's my rational self-interest. But who "wants" to pay the rent, any share of it? Except to avoid the alternative: not having a place to live.

So today while I read, I tried to fit my behavior into this risk-averse/risk-taking analysis. Is it because I am in the minority? That I'll gamble on something and spend big when I see there's something to gain, no problem, but when it's something to lose (i.e. our abode) I kick and scream and fight against it?

And what would Stockard Channing-as-Vera say...

I'm wild again
Beguiled again
A simpering, whimpering child again
Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered am I...

But then at the end of the show, in the reprise, after she has seen the light or come to her senses or stopped this irrational affair, she sings:

Burned a lot
But learned a lot
And now you are broke though you earned a lot
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered no more

Interesting. And I can't even tell you how interesting I find it every week when we talk about so-called rational human behavior in our Negotiation Seminar. One is supposed to stop behaving like that simpering, whimpering child. And yet, in order to please the economists, who like to describe rational behavior, one is supposed to act in one's self-interest. Economists hate it when people don't act in their own rational self-interest. But I propose that it's all the same, and it doesn't have to be pegged as rational or irrational: we are trying to get what we want.

Or maybe I just like how my Girls put it best:

But now you feel that you've got nothing left.
If there's nothing to lose babe,
Ah babe, don't you know by now?
Then there's nothing to gain.

--indigo girls, 'walk away'

Terror and such

In my favorite film of the past year, Frost/Nixon, there's an exchange that you may have seen in the preview as well where Frost asks Nixon if he is saying that the president can do something illegal? Nixon responds, forcefully, "I'm saying, that when the president does it, it's not illegal!" Frost, stunned, sort of stammers, "I'm sorry?"

Today I'm studying for my Civil Liberties and the War on Terror class, and reviewing the Commander-in-Chief powers of war and whether/how the Bush Administration's attempts to expand Commander-in-Chief powers conflicted with Congress.

The U.S. Department of Defense issued a "Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism" in April 2003. It lists the Commander-in-Chief authority as a legal doctrine that could "render specific conduct, otherwise criminal, not unlawful."

Just in case you were wondering.

Why it's important to take internet surveys

In the last week I have learned some very important things about myself via this glorious ol' internet. Last night I took a quiz that informed me I "might have" mild adult ADHD. This diagnosis was based on my answering "just a little" or "somewhat" to questions such as whether I find myself thinking and worrying about too many different things and whether I have trouble tackling all my tasks in the order I set out to do so. I think the result should have read "You might have a mild case of being a law student." A few days ago I took the enlightening Best Places quiz to determine which metropolitan area is the place in which I should live. My top five best places apparently are:

1. San Francisco
2. Boston
3. Los Angeles
4. New York
5. Washington D.C.

For this we needed a survey? Then again, perhaps this quiz result needs an even larger grain of salt because it also said that my sixth choice? Is Long Island! Ack! The horror! Everyone knows that come May 18 I plan to never set foot in Nassau or Suffolk County for the rest of my life. Maybe the algorithm accidentally calculated my results in reverse. I think the real problem is that the rankings give Long Island an A+ for culture. Oh my.

I think I was better off when I stuck to "Which Grey's Anatomy character are you?"

Real Things

So, I liked Rachel Getting Married. I don't think it was perfect, but I liked it a lot. I just thought it was so real. I liked the screenplay, although it was flawed. I liked the story and how real it was. I read one assessment of it that it "added something new to this overdone genre." I could sort of get behind that statement. I'm not sure I agree with the premise that this is an overdone genre, but I have from time to time thought that there are a lot of gritty, independent movies out there that come off as very knowingly provocative about drug use and it's annoying, like, "Ooooh, I'm going to show someone shooting up and it's going to be so EDGY and daring and AWEsome." This movie has zero of that, but not just because it's about the recovery side of addiction but also because I feel like that attitude is entirely missing: it's saying real things about the addict and, crucially, her family instead of just trying to be all knowing about the worldliness of drug use.

In fact, I would say this film does a lot to point out that for all her being "out there" the addict didn't get too much out of her worldly life, whereas the non-addict sister seems to have truly seen the world.

I liked the performances. I am not really in the Anne Hathaway camp, but I at least like her a little better when she's all dressed in black and messed up instead of this princess/sweet girl nonsense. I am going to have to draw a line, however, on the "fat" thing. Anne Hathaway is not fat, and this is the second movie in a row (did she do anything between this and The Devil Wears Prada?) where she prattles on about being fat, and then it's sort of "part of the story" as if she really is not fat but maybe a few pounds over whatever ideal weight she has in her head. It's crap. In this one, it was all "Oh, rehab makes you fat" and it's passed off as just this character's neurotic thing, but it's suspiciously similar to Devil...Prada when she is, ostensibly, the "fatter" one compared to Emily Blunt's character who's on a starvation diet. No wonder people have unrealistic bullshit body image concepts if they go around accepting the likes of Anne Hathaway as overweight. It bugs me. It has no purpose in either movie whatsoever. It tries to pretend it does in each case, but I swear it's like Anne putting it in there or something.

Anyway, bonuses include Robyn Hitchcock in the movie, and he sings! plus a fun blue elephant wedding cake.

I am nearly through with the "major" categories of the Oscar noms. Still two more Best Actress to see, Angelina Jolie in Changeling and Melissa Leo in Frozen River, and they are waiting atop my Netflix queue for when they are released on DVD the next two Tuesdays. In theaters, I still have to see Happy-Go-Lucky (screenplay), Defiance (score), and whatever foreigns and shorts I can get.

So that's the movie update. What else? Finished Ishmael (see my literary supplement)and am trying to get all caught up and ahead in my law school things so I don't have to worry about school. I am totally opposed to worrying about school right now; I just want to coast along in my senioritis learning but not fretting.

However, I have to do a great deal of fretting about where/how to get a job. How tiresome. I'm leaning more and more toward moving to a cheaper city as soon as humanly possible, but then it's like, why am I taking the bar exam in New York? Not that I know where else to take it -- so that's why I'm taking it in New York. It's a big vicious circle.

Oh yeah, and I find it really hard to care about the Grammys. But I am on the verge of officially becoming a fan of Taylor Swift. Just putting that out there.

I swear I see my shadow

February. I think I have been in one of my driest of dry spells, posting-wise. Something about the last semester of law school? I don't know if it's just that. There is that, of course. I have a weird kind of senioritis. I want to figure out how to get away with doing as little as possible, except I've somehow put myself in five writing classes. By writing classes, I mean that I have to RESEARCH and write a 20+ page paper. I feel like I should call them "research classes" instead, because "writing class" sounds like something I would actually want to do. The reason to call them anything at all is to distinguish them from "final classes" which is the more typical thing: one exam at the end to determine your grade for the entire course.

So, how did I end up in so many writing classes? It's that whole pesky taking-subject-matter-in-which-you-are-interested thing. I was quite tempted to take a three-or-four-class schedule, just a couple big ol' four-credit lectures with monster finals like Evidence and Business Organizations (aka Bizzorgs) and such. But no. Here I am in seven two-credit classes, mostly seminars, for a total of 14 credits, even though I need only 12 credits; I'm still trying to decide which one to drop. My plan at this point is essentially to drop the class of whichever paper annoys me the most. I have another week or so to drop a class without a 'W.' Not that I'm particularly scared of a 'W,' at least, not on my transcript. I'm plenty frightened of that other W (Dubya).

I do have two finals classes, Nonprofit Organizations and Death Penalty. I am highly interested in the subject matter and the not having to write a paper, so those classes are not in the running to be dropped.

Meanwhile on the personal front, Brian and I have just returned from the trip to Michigan for his grandmother's funeral. It was a wonderful service and I will say more about it at a later moment. I'm glad we got to go and that Brian got to be there with all the cousins/aunt/uncles etc. to remember their wonderful grandmother.

In Pennsylvania we drove by the exit for Punxsutawney but decidedly ignored Phil. Also, in Michigan the night we were on the way there (and so close!!) we had an unfortunate icy road conditions incident, and we got into a drifted bank and then we got upsought...more on that later, as well. To entertain you in the meantime, I did add some musings to the literary supplement, about my latest novel read, which is not a great book by any stretch of the imagination but is definitely giving me some severe hippie longing.

Any day now, any way now, I shall be released...

Welcome Back

Oh. My. God.

And so another semester has dawned and it has the distinction of being -- oh yes -- my last semester of law school.

And, just when I had started to get all "can't-believe-it's-almost-over" and even a little "oh-it's-not-so-bad" about this place, five insipid 1Ls (or possibly four 1Ls and a 2L) have plopped themselves down next to me here in the law school lounge to remind me that nothing -- nothing! not even having to pay off $100,000 in loans! -- could be worse than staying here on Long Island.

Being in Curacao over winter break is what initially bred the not-so-bad delusion. But there was one clear difference between taking law classes in Curacao and taking them here, and I ain't talkin' about palm trees. In Curacao, out of the 52 of us "studying" abroad, only about ten were from Hofstra. It was nice. So nice. Almost no one was from Long Island. People were from seven or eight different law schools. Conversations were interesting. If I ever needed confirmation that going to Hofstra was a terrible idea, Curacao may have been it.

But I didn't actually need that confirmation, for reasons such as today, back at the lounge. First, three girls sort of amble in, all loud and stupid as Long Islanders often are, and they proceed to figure out how to sit in some of the armchairs next to the arm chair in which I happen to be happily settled. After a bit of sitting, one of them giggles, "I feel so far away from you!" and what ensues is a somewhat less-than-the-motor-skills-of-a-preschooler display of moving her armchair closer to the armchairs of her friends. This shouldn't be too difficult, as her chair started the process about two feet away, but it required essentially switching the places of this armchair and the intervening small square side table. One of the friends helped, but her "help" would probably have been more effective had she been willing to lift herself out of her chair, rather than just sort of reaching with no leverage.

At any rate, they eventually manage to drag this table, that really probably weighs no more than one of our textbooks, the all of two feet she needs it to move so that she may be closer to her friends, but they manage to drag the table legs over my laptop cord two or three times during the process. The first two times, I just moved it out from under the table leg's path, but the third time when she left it there on top of the cord, I said, "Could you please watch out for the cord? Thanks." They were horrified, of course, but probably not just from my appalling bitchiness (?) as from the emergence of a voice without a twentysomething Long Island accent.

Then, they spend about a half hour talking about how they are waiting for the Dean's Forum to begin (a question and answer session that takes place here in the lounge where the deans meet with the students) so that they can get some free food, as there is pizza provided at the forum.

During this time, two more of their friends arrive. One of them is the sole guy in the group, so there is a lot of good-natured teasing of the sole guy about things that apparently bewilder him, such as laundry.

Next, the group discusses whether or not to attend a certain happy hour tomorrow evening which takes place down the street from Hofstra. One girl, who apparently has a brief momentary flash of intelligence, says that she is not going to drive to school that day, so that she can drink and then not worry about driving. This absolutely baffles the other four members of the group. "How are you going to get home???!" they cry. She informs them that the bus goes right by her house. They consider this, but interrogate her further. A bus? They are so confused. They try to think of other solutions, such as going to the happy hour and not drinking, driving and drinking anyway, etc. Finally, in desperation, one of the girls says, "What if you drive your car to my house and we drive to school together?"

I'm not sure if that ever got resolved, because it was almost time to start eating the free pizza. The last few minutes were spent with the guy actually kicking my cord out of the plug as he attempted to stand up (the outlet, by the way, is in the FLOOR), as well as a discussion about how much they hate it when people raise their hands and make comments during classes. "It's like, I don't care about other people's opinions I just want to know what I need to know for the final!" one stated. The others chorused their agreement.

Four months more on Long Island, and then, so help me, once I've seen that damn lighthouse at Montauk I am out of here, never to return.

Waning Curacao

I swear there's something in the air that just changes when you pass the halfway point of a trip. It's kind of like the moon. Before I took astronomy I wouldn't have known there was such a thing as waxing gibbous and waning gibbous, and when you look at those moons in the sky, one or two days on either side of the full moon, they are the same, but reversed: maybe you can't immediately pinpoint it, but something is different. As of today we are thirteen days in to our adventure with nine days to go, and I feel a shift in mood, energy level, desires, satisfaction, thirst(literal and figurative), and just general state of mind. Also, I think the time starts to pass differently -- again -- as we pass the halfway point.

I am sick today. A fever and headache -- early signs of dengue fever, so I'll keep pretending it's that until it's clear that it's not. Oh wait, that's probably already the case. Anyway, six or seven people have been sick already; we have a hospital run every couple of days. Flu, dehydration, antibiotics...our professor from the Netherlands asked today, "What's wrong with you Americans, always getting sick everywhere you go?" My response: We eat preservatives in all our food and our bodies are flummoxed whenever we arrive in any other place in the world, it seems. Then again, we tend to find eggshells in the scrambled eggs here from time to time, and one girl said she found a piece of glass in her food at some restaurant downtown, so who knows?

I feel like we have to be more studious for the last half of our trip, and I wish it were the other way around. I wish they had thrown us in and scared us and then had it lighten up. I feel like I've done a lot of fun stuff, but now there are a lot of studious things scheduled for the next eight days. Yesterday we visited the central bank of Curacao, kind of like the Netherlands Antilles Federal Reserve, and heard some lectures and international banking transaction information, then had snacks. It was a cool building. As we were walking in, I pretended we were there to ask for a bailout. Just for the U.S. in general.

The fireworks began popping up last night. Tonight we will attend a celebration on the beach with drinks, live reggae music, and more fireworks. Apparently there will be fireworks all over the island tonight. And drunk people.

We have New Year's Day off, and then this Sunday will be our only other remaining full day off. There are stil a bunch of activities to squeeze in. And we are starting to think about the final exams! But first, we must do our part to ring in the new year. I'll be in 2009 an hour before the East Coast...see you there.