Deceptive Workload & Time Managment

Since I'm in the middle of my second all-nighter in a row (although I did nap for 5 hours, today, so it's not like I've been awake for 48 straight), I wanted to just say: This is not because law school is overwhelmingly difficult or we have too much reading.

It's really about time managment.

I woke up from my nap at 5PM, went to dinner at 8PM (with a 1/2 Persian 1/2 Afghan doctor!) in the Meatpacking District (no giggles!) at a restaurant I'd been to in 2004 with a Swiss friend called Nero, got home at 11:30PM, and had my school stuff together, work set-out, coffee in hand, and was sitting down at my desk here in the library a bit before 2AM.

That's 9 hours straight of not working.

Since I'll finish my work, but only thanks to staying up all night, that means that I could have slept for 9 hours and STILL finished my work had I wasted no time at all, or I could have even had a 2 hour dinner and gotten 7 hours sleep, or a 1 hour dinner and 2 hours at the gym and gotten 6 hours of sleep.

Law school isn't that bad, but you really can see the tradeoff between having a loose schedule and getting sleep.

If I immortalize it in a blog does it count as a lesson learned?

VC

GLAM @ YLS

Check out this really interesting article about McKinsey's recruitment of gay Yale Law School students.

VC

Tautology of Pilates

I want to take just a couple minutes to debunk the myth that pilates will give you a long, slender physique. It's true that everyone who does it seriously has a long, slender physique, and so we assume that they are evidence that pilates works.

NO!

As I have now experienced on more than one occasion, you cannot do pilates unless you have a long, slender physique!!

In class, this evening, the instructor kept wanting us to do different variations of the same theme: crunch your bellybutton to your spine and move your spine as close to your thighs as possible. It takes many forms, from variations on the standard crunch, to rocking back and forth as a "scrunch" ball, to being an extended cow cat...or something like that. Anyway, what I realized every time she wanted us to scrunch up for this or that that I CANNOT scrunch myself the way she does! It's not that easy for me to put my chin over my knees, because that involves folding myself in half, and let's just saw that between my mid section and my thighs combined there is a lot of human matter getting in the way of the scrunch.

I really think only people who already have pilates bodies can do pilates at all, but I'm not giving up, yet. There were no hot guys in my class, unfortunately; in fact, I was the only guy in the class (there were only 5 of us), but there was a rather butch lesbian with killer back muscle!

Will I be 20lbs less chunky by Christmas? We'll see!

VC

Subway Performances

EVERY time I ride the train, now, there is a strung-out black junkie trying to sing for money. It's really awful. It's awful for the riders, and it's an awful statement about poverty and drug abuse in at-risk communities.

On a lighter note, Kelly rides the subway (she's a good acrtress on SNL!).

VC

Law School's Version of "Fun"

You must read the email, below, from CLS Student Services in order to see why it is that I (who admittedly am not super fun to begin with) do not think that the activities designed by the law school to be fun come anywhere near meeting the definition of the word.

You might think, at first, that they are saying "study a bit extra this weekend in order to NOT study during the night of fun we're planing," but you'd be wrong! What they actually mean is: "study extra this weekend so that you can excel at our totally un-fun game!"

I cannot believe the sample question.

***

We say:
Study a little extra next weekend.

You say:
WHY?

We say:
Well, because QUIZZO is on Monday, October 30 -- surely to go down as the
most fun, entertaining, enjoyable, amusing Monday in the history of
Columbia
Law School.


What you need to know:

-- Quizzo (CLS's version of a pub-style trivia night) is FREE.
-- Lenfest Café, 8 pm. Monday, October 30.
-- We've only got space for 20 teams of 5 people.
-- Register your team by emailing Andy Bradley (ajb2135@columbia.edu)
-- Feel free to attend either in your superhero costume or in your civilian
disguise
-- This round of QUIZZO is sponsored by Student Services, so we'll have
lots of food, drink, and fun. JOIN US!

Cheers,
Elizabeth, Andy, Mainon, & Colin (your quizmasters)

p.s.
Warmup Question:
Why are Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez & Secretary of Labor
Elaine Chao most likely not included in the U.S. Presidential line of succession?
(Scroll down for answer)

Warmup Answer:
3 U.S.C. § 19(e) specifies that even the acting president must meet the
constitutional requirements for the office of president. As Guterriez was
born in Cuba and Chao in Taiwan, they (most likely) do not meet the
requirement of Article II, Section 1. That section requires that the
Office of President be held by a natural-born citizen.

The same question would exist for officers in the line of succession who
are not at least 35 years old or have not resided in the United States for 14
years.

***

YIKES

VC

Name That Band

Ok I need the help of my blog readers to watch this clip from the PerezHilton blog and tell me what heavy metal band this is!

It's a bit ironic that it's AFTER Pookie and I no longer speak that his world of heavy metal and mine of Kelly Clarkson could actually come together!

It's a really long clip (like eight minutes) but I have to point out three things:

1. Kelly handled what could have been a REALLY humiliating situation (being spotted and then on-stage insulted and sexually harassed by some heavy metal band at a concert she was at) PERFECTLY (she basically faked it and managed to not look awkward at all)

2. She was perfectly uninhibited, so it neither looked like she was trying too hard, nor was she intimidated, and I think for someone with her image she demonstrated amazing coolheadedness and basically took charge and owned the situation.

3. Can we just mention the fact that even TRASHED (she's OBVIOUSLY wasted, and even says to the guy who pulls her on stage "I'm drunk," which is why he proceeds to say that they're all on different drugs), she out-sings all of them on their own song. I think it's a testament to her genius that she IMPROVISES HARMONY (on the first try) in "Oh Sweet Child of Mine" (it's worth watching just for that, MOM, since you think she isn't that good!) and then she totally captures the rock attitude even better than they do, later in the song.

It's an annoying clip, but as the PerezHilton blog says "bitch can throw it down!"

VC

Oh Holy Night Awards

For most 24yo gay men in NYC the title of that blog entry might make you think that this posting is about ranking my many lovers. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of material to work with on that front, so it's ACTUALLY a short blog about my favourite Christmas carol as sung by a few of my favourite divas.

1. The award for "Best coked-up 19yo diva with no sense of the meaning of the words she's singing, but possessing amazing virtuosity" goes (as one could imagine) to Christina Aguilera. She sang this version for President Clinton back in 1999 (and she has come a LONG way in terms of the choices she makes, musically, in the last seven years). I think it's hilarious that she's so concerned with getting an extra run in that she doesn't even complete the line, in the beginning, of "It is the night of our dear saviour's birth" -- it's more like "...of our dear saviour's birrr--Oh-OHH" lol. I think that her run at 1:00-1:01 on the word "night" is ridiculous, but also extremely impressive...I mean this girl grew up with NO vocal training. I feel bad posting this song, because it is BY FAR not one of her better performances, but I still find her amazing, and it does make me laugh how she missed the spirit of the song so completely...I mean she actually walks off stage before it's even over! The comment about her sounding like a constipated rabbit is also hilarious (sometimes the youtube comments are better than the clips, themselves).

2. The award for "Worst video of one of the best recordings ever" HAS to go to Mariah Carey. In this video, which she tries to market as live (and therefore mixes it differently [worse] than on the album) even though it isn't, Mariah, as one of the comments says (and is SO right!) demonstrates what an atrocious actress she is by sucking at pretending to sing her own song. The video is torture to watch, which is so sad, because her version of "Oh Holy Night" on her Christmas album is hands-down one of the best I've ever heard. I think, though, that you can see how her musical choices make a bit more sense than Christina's and Kelly's (the next one up), and I think that she's a good example of how the flip-flopping that people complain about as "vocal gymnastics" (lamest critique ever!) can actually come organically in the melody of a song such that it is used really effectively.

3. The award for "Gutsiest a capella performance by a then-emerging star in below freezing weather atop a Manhattan skyscraper" goes to Kelly Clarkson. I feel, in this performance , that even though her melodic choices are a bit weird, you can hear how rich her voice is and how her vibrato really spins. I think that her voice is actually much richer than both Christina's and Mariah's, and I think that if she didn't always have to sing pop-rock crap for record sales, people could see that she has every bit as much soul and ability as Aretha...even her head voice is really rich, and her vibrato still really spins up there. If you want a lesson in technique, then you need look no farther than Kelly. She suffers from vocal strain because she performs like 10 millions shows a year and REALLY gives her all, but she has (I believe) really incredible technique. In the FEW voice lessons that I had a few summers ago in NYC, my teacher would try to get me to practice this really trendy "speech level singing" technique (where you keep your larynx low, like when you're talking naturally, even through your upper register -- where it has the tendency to rise and create tightness/strain), and one of the things she'd tell me to do, which I didn't get at first, was reset the position of my larynx by crying into a note -- like she wanted me to kind of whimper, almost, before starting a note after a breath, and you can hear really good singers do that (which I never noticed until my voice teacher pointed it out), including Kelly, in this song, at 0:55 when she says "{whimper} a thrill of hope..." as well as at 1:12 when she says "fall {whimper} on your knees." She also does it almost imperceptibly at 1:06 as she enters the note for "a new and glorious morn' ." I keep listening to it, and I totally stand by my comment that just on a single pitch her voice is richer than anyone else out there (it's SO three-dimensional!).

4. My final award, the "Hooked on phonics purity of tone and vocal control award" has to go to Celine Dion. I think that this is BY FAR (by like a million miles) the most polished performance , and I have to say that the woman almost never, ever, EVER hits a bad note. She's one of the most dependable live performers alive (and also has miraculously little vocal strain). What impresses me about her is that she can belt like it's no one's business (4:28-4:38), but has SO much control that she can also almost whisper (1:48-1:57) and it's still tonally perfect and gorgeous (and as Curie says, never "thin" even at its most delicate). One of my favourite parts (in terms of it being bad) is at 1:00 ("A thrill of hope") where you can here EXACTLY why I could not stand her for so many years (and still can't, on any song where she has to sing the word "love"), which is that on her "Oh" sounds she raises the back of her tongue to her palette and creates an "ur" sound -- so instead of "love" it's "lurve," which I used to think was just because her English used to be pretty bad, but now, having heard her French songs, I've realized is just one of (perhaps the only) flaw in her technique. I think that this is the most stirring performance, and I beseech anyone reading this to please find a way to get me good seats to her concert in Las Vegas lol. I also should apologize to Celine for mocking her English, because I always thought that her saying, at 1:34 "oh her the angel-voices" that she was making a grammatical error and failing to add a possessive suffix and pluralize it to make it "angels' voices," but having heard all the other versions, I guess it's just originally written (awkwardly) as a compound noun. In my defense, though, you can actually SEE her struggling with the English pronunciation at 0:59 when instead of saying "and the soul felt its worth" she makes the "th" (which they don't really have much of in French" an "f" -- "and the soul felt its werf" (you can SEE her do it). Look, also, for the moment at 3:10 where Celine temporarily forgets that she's not at a Latin dance competition (not sure the arm movement really fit the mood of the piece at that moment).

Finally, and I'm only including this as part of my not-yet-declared campaign to rid America of bad taste, but here is Jessica Simpson's recording of the song. Why do we (Americans) waste money on people with NO talent and prop them up even when we have all the evidence we need to see through them? People supporting Ashley Simpson, even when it was clear she couldn't sing, even when it was clear that her reality show about her launch of her first CD was PART of Jessica's contract to continue on the Newleyweds, and even after she was caught lip synching on Saturday Night Live and RAN OFF STAGE and made a lame excuse for it, people STILL put her CD at #1...it's the SAME way Bush was re-elected after manifesting his incompetence for the first four years he was in office. Anyway, there are two things to note in this performance of Jessica's that can only be described as wretched beyond belief -- and characteristic of what her family considers to constitute "talent." First, note the Simpson technique that I call "baby voice"...not breathy in a good Lea Salonga way, or sexy in a Marilyn Monroe way...it's literally like a baby trying to be seductive and it's really disturbing. I don't need to point out specific segments in the performance that demonstrate this technique, because it's basically all throughout (and also represents most of what Ashley Simpson employs as a substitute for real singing -- that and yelling...); the second technique is what I call "strangled belt," which is when Jessica attempts to show off her diva range (and set herself apart from Ashely, who can't even manage the strangled belt!) but in the process is SO strained that she can barely get out some nasal and narrow and totally ugly vibrato. I REALLY cannot stand her. A good example of the strangled belt from the beginning of the song (since I don't think any human being should have to sit through the whole thing) can be found at 1:37. YIKES!

Well enough time-wasting aside. I should do SOMETHING with my day, now that it's 7:30PM. Maybe I'll go to the gym and not feel the oppression of ther guys who are usually there, since I'm guessing that they are using their chiseled bodies to have some fun on a Saturday night and won't be at the gym!

VC

Always On Your Side

For someone who I doubt very much reads this blog, anymore --

My yesterdays are all boxed up and neatly put away
But every now and then you come to mind
Cause you were always waiting to be picked to play the game
But when your name was called, you found a place to hide
When you knew that I was always on your side

Well everything was easy then, so sweet and innocent
But your demons and your angels reappeared
Leavin' only traces of the man you thought you'd be
Too afraid to hear the words you'd always feared
Leavin' me with only questions all these years

But is there someplace far away, someplace where all is clear
Easy to start over with the ones you hold so dear
Or are you left to wonder, all alone, eternally
This isn't how it's really meant to be
No it isn't how it's really meant to be

*********************

Always On Your Side

Salam Productivity, Khodahafez Farsi

Well I've made the not-so-difficult decision to drop the Farsi class that I was never allowed to take in the first place, mostly because I've been having to ditch it so frequently to go to law school events. There seems to be an endless stream of speakers, dinners, trainings, and other things that I want to go to (at least once per week) and I feel like, at least for now, I should put that stuff first. I know that our OutLaws dinner (tomorrow night) is not as important as learning a language, but on the other hand it's events like that which present our only option to interact with law school people outside the classroom (or study groups), and I think I should seize that chance.

The secondary reason (actually it ties in importance with the first reason) is that I feel like, while I don't have an unmanageable amount of work, I do have a really heavy commitment load. I feel like, for whatever reason, I'm just totally loaded down with obligations, and it's really a welcome day when ALL I have to do is go to class and have me time.

Since starting back to the gym at the beginning of last week (I think 4 times in 8 days is not great, but not awful, either -- and only 1 pizza!) I also realized that, if I leave for the gym after my last law school class, I can exercise and be back uptown in my apartment before I would have even gotten out of Persian. With there being less daylight hours, more work, more need to de-stress and run a few miles each day, and (sadly) the mind-numbing pedagogical style of my Persian professor (who is, otherwise, a total sweetheart), it is clearly the right decision to give myself more me-time, and not sacrifice productivity in a lot of spheres (social, study, gym...) for one language class that I was just doing for enrichment, anyway.

It might sound strange, but I'm actually surprised with how productive I've been, lately, as well as how un-stressed I've been. Even going into my Legal Methods exam, last Friday, I was pretty relaxed, and even after having slept only 10 minutes the night before, I came straight back from the exam and did my Human Rights Internship Program (HRIP) application (even though it was not due until this Monday), had it reviewed by the Center for Public Interest Law, and went out that night with friends. Basically every day, I've been getting much-needed things done (calling this office or that company or sending XYZ emails), in addition to exercising, cooking for myself, keeping up on laundry and dishes...it's really...odd.

I think that I'm actually moving towards an equilibrium where I'm in perfectly-dampened motion and can sort of continue, without much adjusting, as long as my life stays as balanced as it is, now -- it's weird how spending energy on some things has actually given me more energy to do other things (like being healthy kind of feeds itself in the same way that being unhealthy prompts more unhealthiness).

Enough singing my own praises :) Back to contracts [I actually went to office hours, today, and the Professor and I are reading through a book together that I went down to NYU, after class, to pickup -- it's very law and econ intensive, but so is he, so we'll see how that goes...at least I'm interacting with him outside class]

VC

Fighting Temptation

In case you are wondering how I can sleep 13 hours a day on the weekend, I think all you need to see is how plush my bed is (thanks to the down mattress pad AND the down blanket from Curie that we used to call in college "the cloud" because it's so heavenly).

I sit down on the bed and am giddy with how nice it is.

Anyway, just got back from Contracts where I was AGAIN on call (this is getting unfair to the other students!) although we joked around and it was actually kind of fun; when I set my bag down on the bed and saw it sink into the cloud, I just had to take a photo.

I think even the worst insomniac would not last 5 minutes in this bed.

VC

Weird Dreams (and Dates)

Ok I am definitely sleeping too much, because I have had THE weirdest dreams lately.

I can understand my dreams last night, because they related very closely to a odd (but nice) date I had last night.

Quick date wrap-up.

The good: he's handsome, intelligent, cares about art, and seems overall to be very good-natured (and he's not threateningly charismatic, which is usually what I'm attracted to, but which doesn't usually make someone such a great person); his dog really liked me (and I liked it, and it wasn't my standard type, either); he's very boundary-less in terms of going for what he wants, which is excellent -- example: asking an indoor restaurant that the dog "picked" by staring at it when we walked by if, in the pouring rain, they'd extend their awning and bring a table outside for us...which they did (I like someone who indulges his own particularities, because that means he's less likely to condemn me for indulging mine, so long as our spheres of particularity do not overlap, leading to a power struggle); his terrace goes all around the entire building and is, estimating conservatively, 6 or 8 times the size of my entire apartment (hey -- at least it's only the size of his balcony I'm concerned with!).

The bad: there no evidence that he's had a successful relationship in the past (sound familiar?); he's said that he's restricted all non-essential travel since getting his dog seven years ago so that he's not left alone ("he" being the dog); his 28yo assistant (straight and with girlfriend) is now moving into a house that he owns in Brooklyn, and has power of attorney (don't ask me how that comes about on a first date!); he does not email (his assistant reads and writes all of his emails).

The odd: he has been doing extensive renovations to an apartment which I'd been hearing about since before Labor Day, which I just found out last night are actually three apartments that constitute the entire floor of a building in Greenwich Village that *get this* he's renting -- he doesn't buy, because he says it's cheaper to rent and he can just walk away from a rental and it's not his problem...this coming from a guy who has knocked down walls, totally changed the floors, is having new cabinets installed, had all the air conditioners covered in bamboo and window sills lined with marble...AND IT'S NOT EVEN HIS! He has what is probably the most important collection of Russian avant-garde art in the world (and was pleasantly surprised that I knew of some of the painters from a previous life) but wants to sell the whole thing to a Russian (or multiple Russians) in political trouble and looking for valuable art as a bargaining chip (eg: "Dear Government, I'll give this Faberge Egg to the Hermitage if you don't nationalize my oil company.") He has to bring his own salt everywhere he eats, and not because he can't request sea salt from the chef (which of course he could) but because he needs special unrefined powder sea salt. He is so deathly allergic to dogs that he cannot even get the allergy shots that would increase his tolerance because having even a small amount of hair injected into his arm could kill him; nevertheless, seven years ago, he spotted a dog from across the street that he said he instantly knew was brilliant, and went to the guy with the dog and said "tell me about this dog," and the guy told him that he found it the day before with the police taking it to the pound, and couldn't keep it because he was leaving NYC; J then told the guy that he would take the dog, and (not to his surprise) even after not letting it on any furniture, washing all the time after he touches it, and having restricted areas of the house where it can never ever go, he lost 70% of his lung capacity within a few weeks -- the solution? Steroid shots twice daily. [Note: this is why, when he invited me a Juicy MD to a concert of Phillip Glass, who I didn't know at the time is one of his best friends, in the Hamptons, he said that she wouldn't have to worry about the dog, because it's not allowed to go to the main part of the house...since he is also allergic to his own dog!]

In all, he seems like someone who has a lot of potential, but the date was really halted by these long pregnant pauses in which he'd just grin at me (or not at me), which under normal circumstances would be romantic (if a bit off-putting), but last night I learned meant: "I'm thinking about how cute the dog is right now." It was hard for us to talk about ANYTHING, because we were so focused on the dog...how smart he is (he is REALLY well-trained even though he was never actually trained at all and is a total sweetheart)...how he performs cost benefit analysis ("do I take the treat or insist we walk the direction I want to walk?")...how he takes contracts seriously ("if I take the treat then I can't trick J and make him walk my direction anyway. I have to agree to go the way he wants to go")...how he makes instant value judgments about people that J trusts, etc. It was really good for me that the dog loved me, but I feel like it was hard for me to get to know J not only because his life itself doesn't fit into the standard boxes we grab on to when we get to know someone (I mean, someone who doesn't work per se, but rather "works" at watching his investments and his art collection, and who doesn't talk much about either -- you can't ask him about his day!), but also because he just isn't that easy to talk to because we had to be so distracted by the (extremely cute) dog.

Sidenote: "our" dog started playing with another dog (kind of at my request) which is perhaps the cutest white puff of a thing I've ever seen. It was an American Eskimo. Remember that.

Ok so the dreams (is it obvious that I'm procrastinating before my Legal Methods exam in 16 hours?...I have a second date with a nice Israeli tonight, actually!). I had a REALLY restless sleep last night because I dreamt that I was at J's house, except he not only had pets (many of them -- some of them odd found-objects and other things that are NOT, in real life, pets, but had somehow come to life in the dream) but also children, and I had to sort of be tested by all of them to see how well I could handle all his pets and kids, while going from room to room in this house filled with art oddities. It was just...really odd. I'd be, like, chasing a tiny rainbow coloured crocodile with one of his ethnically-mismatched daughters (REALLY a weird dream!) and then have to stop in front of some antique mirror and, like, be amazed by it in order to be properly respectful to his space. It was VERY odd.

I just took a nap after brunch wherein I dreamed that my nieces (kind of), some of their friends (kind of), and some random people from my law school (again, they were sometimes there, sometimes not, and I don't really know most of them in real life) came to my mother's place in CA for Thanksgiving *along with* a group of traveling nuns trying to recruit the girls in the group to join the convent. I remember that our house was REALLY cluttered (eg: with glasses with formal napkins in them, unwashed, etc.) -- which is SO not how my mother has her house -- and that even though the dinner went really well, I found my mother crying in my walk-in closet, talking about what a failure it was and how she wanted everything to be perfect (ok that part could actually happen in real life lol). When I started to reassure her that everyone had a great time, she then tried to find the silver lining in the nuns, and said "well at least they make us take the girls out to see the world before they are allowed to commit themselves to the convent, unlike the ones who came to Webb [my high school]" (weird since that never happened) at which point my mother and I both put black pillow cases over our heads, folded in the back, to see what we'd look like as nuns, and then joined the rest of the party. The dream then became about how we were, like, flying the girls all over the world so that they could make an informed decision about joining a convent, and the last thing I remember, after an extremely vivid (and fun) take-off in the middle of a lightening storm (it was like blasting off in a rocket ship) was waiting in line for coffee on the plane, disappointed that they only had one little chocolate cracker thing to offer by the time they gave me my snack, and it was ruined because it had orange marmalade stuff on it.

Have to study before my date! I'm going to tell the Israeli that we have two hours for dinner and then I *have* to come back and study for my Legal Methods exam (which is just pass/fail, but still). He invited me to a gallery opening, but I'm going to be disciplined and stay home and only meet him for dinner.

VC

PS: To anyone who has doubted my ability to move-on post-Pookie, please kiss it. There's a difference between loving someone and being a fool. I love Pookie and wish that we had some involvement in each other's lives (even non-romantic) but we don't, and it's a choice he made that I'm not going to cry over or foolishly fret about. The loss may not be entirely his, but the choice was, and he's old enough that if he wants to continue to make the same mistakes that he's made throughout his life and then lie to himself about what they mean, then he should be able to do that.

Stuffing My Face at Midnight

No, I wasn't breaking my diet -- I was keeping it!

So after getting back from the gym, last night, and downing a huge can of green beans in its entirety, I added up my calories for the day, which, before expending 300+ calories at the gym, was only 540. NOT GOOD. I don't care what kind of diet you're on, having a deficit of almost 2000 calories at the end of the day is not healthy or sustainable. So, at midnight, I finally had the reserve to go to the market and MAKE myself buy food that I could eat before bed. It was actually kind of like a game -- what products to buy that could add up to give me the calories I needed for the day (my target is about 1460) while maximizing nutrition and fullness. I ended up cooking myself some tortellini (which I couldn't even eat half of -- those green beans were filling!), having a protein drink with some lactose-free milk (testing out the theory that I might be lactose intolerant), and some rice crackers covered in wasabi (LOVE THOSE!).

It was really kind of funny that I was exhausted and wanted to sleep but had to eat!

Diets are odd things.

On more food news, I have discovered that tea is AMAZING! Zero calories and it doesn't require sugar to be potable (unlike coffee), and still can give you the pep you need to be called on AGAIN in Contracts.

A friend of mine was making fun of me after class, today, because when I'm called on I get all quiet and nervous (surprising, I know), but it's honestly because I'm given questions that are too easy! I was all prepared to describe a complicated multi-step application of a part of the Universal Commercial Code (so complicated that the professor even gave us a huge flow chart to help us navigate it), but instead was asked about the method by which a particular contract was formed in one of our cases (that we were supposed to read for yesterday, of course) and I was stuck for a minute, trying to conjure up some theory of contract formation, when I was like "you mean by telephone?" Yes. He just wanted to know how one party contacted the other (which, for the record, was not even material to this case).

I promise to not annoy you with BOTH diets and law school (I figure restricting myself to the first topic will be sufficiently tedious to my readers), but I just think it's funny how in the past two days I managed to define myself, to my surprise, as the shy guy who struggles with easy questions and doesn't do the torts reading...talk about poorly representing myself!

Too bad :)

VC

Hop on the Bus

Thanks to Vanine for for alerting me to John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus movie opening!

I'm so excited to see what he's done to follow-up Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

This movie doesn't sound so much my taste as, say, Desi's, but I feel like JCM is so talented that it will be good. So I'm seeing it.

So should you.

VC

Worst Day in Law School History

I was on call for all three of my classes (on call not meaning "warned in advance that today would be my day" but rather that I was cold-called in all of them).

Contracts went fine. We have an oddly good relationship even though I'm not one of his favourite females and he has clerked with two of the most audaciously conservative ("economics-minded," "originalists" pick your euphemism) judges on the planet (Posner and Scalia).

Civ Pro started bad (the question she asked was so simple that I thought there must be more to it), but ended up fine (or so I thought) even though she was asking me about a case that just appeared as a note to another case and that we were supposed to read days ago.

Torts was where it all ended. We have never, EVER gotten through all the reading assigned for class, so while I haven't fallen behind in the class, I do enter each day a little behind, but at the end of the day HE is behind us (so each day we are picking up the slack from the day before and you know that if you've done the reading from the prior day, which I had, then 80% of the next day's reading will be plenty).

Well we have a supplement to the book that you have to download online, and to make a long story short, when he called on the guy next to me (which in Torts means that I'll be called next) he skipped ahead three cases to the end of today's reading, a reading from the supplement. The guy next to me had to pass, at which point the professor (this is his version of angry) made a little comment about he thinks that he assigns less reading than other professors, and then asked me if I could answer, which I couldn't. It was SO bad. I mean the worst moment to have to pass, because he was already mad, and it was about a sensitive thing (the supplement). When other students pass it just means "didn't know the specific answer" but in this case it seemed (to him) to mean "I don't read anything from the supplement."

You may recall that this is the professor I have the huge crush on.

After class a guy in my section was like "tough day, VC" and then on the way home he proceeded to elaborate: "Well...I guess you weren't that bad in civ pro...not as bad as some of the others" and even went on to say: "What happened to you today is my worst nightmare...that's all I can say...my worst nightmare."

I told him thank god the exams are graded blindly, and that it's not SUCH a huge deal (it feels like it is, but I know that it isn't) and he was like "yeah, I guess it's not the end of the world," to which I replied: "It's not even CLOSE to the end of the world...it's not even half way there."

People have no perspective.

I'm going to the gym, which will mean that I've successfully avoided the "I feel bad about my day and so I'm going to stop being healthy" trap, and even though I really wanted the baked goods that some sorority was selling (those girls can really bake!), I totally resisted.

So, yeah. I was on call in all my classes (which I have never seen happen to anyone, yet) and totally embarrassed myself in front of my crush professor and made him frustrated and disappointed in the process.

GO ME!

VC

Small Portions, Huge Fork

Small Portions: I'm dieting and exercising. I had a false start two weeks ago to the diet (5 days of healthy eating with no cheating were interrupted by *someone's* arrival from New Haven), but I'm back and today I ate healthfully AND ran. Let's see how long this lasts. I just realized that I gained a pound, this past year, for every year that I've been alive. How not cute.

More importantly, Huge Fork: My career angst, expressed in a series of emails between me and a friend (who is also the closest thing I have to a romantic option, but who is still very, very far from being a boyfriend)...and no, I didn't edit these emails, so sorry:

1. Me to T:

I'm ditching Persian class and going for a run.

Ted, I'm literally going crazy about my career. I swing wildly between "just try things at the UN and do the human rights thing and see how it goes," to "you are fooling yourself if you think you can be happy on a UN salary; get yourself into private industry and figure out how and where -- fast" to "you don't graduate until 2009 so calm down and shut up." I'm also a bit worried by the fact that if I win a human rights fellowship from Columbia for this summer and then take the money and transfer to Yale in the Fall, I have to pay them back for the summer...which would suck...but I think I need to just behave as if I'm not even thinking about Yale and not even thinking about money.

Let's hope I'm not someone who manufactures stress when the waters are clear (better than manufacturing drama, though).

End result of my stress? I need to go for a run :)

2. T to me:

Don’t go crazy, my thought is to calm down a bit, move toward a well paying position that will give you the comfort and options to devote some of your time to human rights. I would recommend not pigeon holing yourself too early in your career but to built the reputation of being a good, strong attorney that can create successful billable hours and do great charitable work.

Anyway that is my soap box… you know what ever you decide I will be supportive.

3. Me to T:

Spoken like a true consultant :)

Actually, though, your advice (although good for someone not in my position) doesn't really apply to me for a few reasons [by the way -- I know you're busy, so don't take this as something I expect you to reply to...it's just so you know me, and then in person we can talk about these things...or not...it's just getting you more familiar with what I'm all about, so don't feel obligated to reply at midnight or something when you have tons of work to do and sleep to catch up on...I know this email is quite an epic]:

I am not interested in practicing law in the private sector (working as a legal assistant at a corporate firm after college helped me decide that), and the only reason I came to law school was to get the credentials necessary to join a guild of public international lawyers (I mean that non-literally). Private sector work interests me as little (or less) than finance, the hours are just as bad, and the pay, from the mid- to long-range, is much worse. In other words: if I'm not a human rights lawyer then I'm not a lawyer, because more gainful and equally or less miserable employment lays elsewhere.

I think your advice is really good for someone who first wants to be a lawyer and second wants to be a do-gooder. The thing with me is that being a lawyer is not my number one priority, and I am not interested in do-gooding at such an abstract level that I'd be happy with charity/pro bono just because it's warm and fuzzy for the world. I like international human rights law and humanitarian law because it's interesting to my brain; it's dynamic, evolving, and intellectually very stimulating *and* (as bonus) yes you get good person points for it.

It is possible for me to claw my way into the extremely competitive world of international law -- I could probably get something with an interesting (from the outside) organization, from the UN, to the ICRC, to any number of great places. The problem is that I think that in a lot of cases the corporate culture at a place like the UN is pretty awful, and there are a lot of people who like the prestige of being involved in human rights but are not truly interesting and committed people (I saw this in Afghanistan). The pay is also REALLY bad. I mean even after YEARS at one of these organizations I'd still be making almost nothing, and I wish (so much!) that I was someone who could live on a tight budget, but the reality is that it makes me pretty unhappy. No, I don't chase all the latest trends or feel the need to fill some void with consumer goods, but I think that it's hard to imagine (indeed, as a law student: to practice) not being able to spend freely on some of my favourite things, and (more importantly for grown-ups) to at the same time save and build a home, investments, etc. I met with my second boyfriend (back in December 2003 we broke up) who was a human rights officer at the UN for years, and he thinks that I shouldn't worry about it, and reminded me that when you are on mission in hazardous areas you get all kinds of bonuses, but that's exactly what I don't want to be -- one of those people who chases one crisis after another *for the money* (SO many UN people in Afghanistan were happy to live in gorgeous homes, get tons of money, and basically do almost nothing while having the world think they are such holy people) with no permanent home, stable relationship, etc.

So as far as international law goes, it's tough to get into, it might not even be what I'm hoping it will be in terms of the work, and the pay will always be a struggle.

That's where I get stressed: I jump to the endgame where I say: Ok, I graduate law school when I'm 27, work in the public sector for three years, and at 30 realize "This was ok, but I can't live like this, and I want more for myself...and I don't need to work as a human rights lawyer to be a good person" and then need to find an alternative path. What? McKinsey? An MBA? Leveraging my experience in the Middle East (my MA and language experience and having lived there) to specialize in energy consulting or something?

After my run, tonight, I was walking down 5th Ave and Central Park South and was just thinking about how uncomfortable it makes me that the choices I'll be making the next few years will basically decide whether or not I'll ever see over the top of Central Park. I'm practical about the fact that the pleasure/utility I could derive from a couple nice homes in less expensive parts of the world could count for a lot more happiness-wise than a small, multimillion dollar apartment overlooking the park, but what makes me uncomfortable is that I won't even have that choice. I've always known that I could basically do anything, and therefore give myself anything, but I'm getting to that stage (as all adults do) where my choices are going to start having real opportunity costs.

I don't believe that human rights is the only path to happiness, and as much as I don't believe that I need to go shopping every week at Hermes to be happy, I also think that being in my 30s and 40s and beyond and not even having the OPTION (regardless of what my actual preferences will be) will make me feel confined and unhappy, and as much as I don't think human rights is the exclusive gateway to happiness (nor is material wealth), I also don't buy into the myth that the corporate road is one that leads inevitably to miserable and moral darkness. Who is to say that there is not some job out there, that right now maybe I don't even know exists (there are SO many niches in consulting, in finance, in investment management, etc.) that I might love AND be compensated well at.

This is why I'm stressing. I feel like I'm at a big huge fork, or at least it's SO big that I can see it immanently in the distance, and I don't know which way to go, and I don't know how to get myself the information to know which way to go (and don't forget that law school is a $65,000/year uncertainty!).

HAHAHAH. See the run totally didn't help. I ran, came back, slept for three hours, and now I'm stressed again (which is not to say that I'm unhappy, but I am a bit concerned that there seems to be an uncomfortable decision, here, that I don't know how to make).

VC

Manhattan Beats SF

It's official -- Manhattan IS more expensive to get a home than San Fransisco.

I'm totally moving to Madrid.

VC

Senate Prediction

I don't know why anyone thought the Democrats had a chance of taking back the Sentate. They are insane.

According to my predictions, the Democrats will probably be 4 seats down to the Republicans (we couldn't even win New Jersey!), and although on the map I've linked to I still have Rhode Island, Montana, and Missouri as toss-ups, I think that Missouri always PRETENDS to be a swing state and ALWAYS goes republican, and I think that Rhode Island will go democratic, as well as (hopefully) Montana, making my prediction:

Republicans: 52
Democrats: 48

Boo.

VC