When I last left you, I was exhausted and wondering how to prepare for a graduation speech. In those few days that have since slipped away, I lived through all of the graduation festivities and moved away from Provo.
Commencement happened on Thursday when my friends and I marched in the endless parade of 2011 BYU graduates into the giant Marriot Center to be addressed by Elder Scott and to be embarrassed when we didn't stand up as the doctorate students were invited to arise (thinking, because we had been told, that the "juris" doctorate students would be recognized separately from the others). Most of the rest of the commencement is a blur. All I remember are some disruptive jokes and commentary from myself and my restless friends on either side of me while inspirational and spiritual chunks of counsel emanated from the speaker. And then it was another march to outside where we took another 12 dozen pictures to add to the 12 dozen pictures we had taken before commencement with our blood-shot tired eyes and wrinkled robes.
Thursday night we had a graduation party with piles of meat in a church gym, reliving old memories with best friends while classmates passed their babies around and took more pictures. Then it was back to Annette's office which was now full of all of our stuff that we had cleaned out of CTU and our carrels. Corey and I stayed late working on my speech. I would type for a while, read, and then Corey would tell me I did a good job but then demand that I change everything (she's getting a lot better at the "tell me I did a good job" part). It was, I knew, going to be one of the last of about 2,000 times I would have Corey flawlessly critique something I was nervous about until we worked out all the kinks. I'm going to miss that. Corey and I left around 11:00.
I didn't really set an alarm. Just woke up when I was ready to on Friday, hoping that my body would sleep as long as it needed to to rid myself of the now 4-day headache. It seemed to work. I rolled to school at about 11:00 AM to find a frantic Annette with curlers in her hair, somehow simultaneously on the phone with all of her friends who had called her to ask for details about where were supposed to be throughout the day, knowing that Annette would be the best person to call for that kind of information. I sat in her office amid the piles of personal belongings that personally belonged to about 6 different people but were starting to get so mixed up with one another's stuff that I wondered how long it would take for us to separate everything out. Sort of reminded me of our lives and how they've all grown together enough that I almost don't remember anymore which experiences are mine and which belong to my friends, in some cases.
Annette popped in and out over the next few hours, looking more put together each time, as I tried to work on my speech amid laying on the couch, sneaking barefoot into the CSO for candy, and walking across campus to visit an old history professor who I meant to visit all year but never could seem to find the time to. On the way I passed hundreds of graduates and their families out taking advantage of the sun for pictures. Finally I printed my speech off and took it into a classroom to practice giving it several times. When I came back, I found a Corey telling me to print it off again because she had gotten ahold of my laptop and made some changes. Then Annette showed up and told us it was time for more pictures outside. I put my stinky robes on once again and smiled while people I know and don't know ordered us around and told us to smile. This happened until it was time to line up for convocation.
We stood in that line for 45 minutes or so, alphabetically and sweaty. Finally we were ushered onto the stage. I sat on the front row, directly in front of the professor I've worked with and become close to over the last few years. She kicked me a few times from behind with her high heels and cracked jokes about her odd robes that oddly had long black shards of fabric hanging off of each sleeve. The curtains opened and we spoke. The lights blinded me and I couldn't really see the crowds of people and crying babies, which I thought was probably a good thing. I stood up there and cracked some awkward jokes, sometimes getting laughs from the crowd in front of me of family members, sometimes getting laughs from the crowd behind me of classmates, but usually not really both crowds at the same time. And sometimes neither crowd at all. My speech went quickly and the next thing I knew we were walking across the stage to get hooded and handed diplomas before singing "America the Beautiful" and getting sent outside while an old man, who's position I never did find out, told me I should probably get married now that I'm done with school.
Outside 2,000 people stood around and hugged, took pictures, and chatted, slowly slipping away to their cars for dinner plans until there were only a dozen or so left. I left with my family and had dinner with them in American Fork. Somehow after the dinner I got so lost trying to drive back to Provo that I ended up on the west side of Utah Lake (and if you aren't familiar with the valley, just trust me--this is shockingly, terribly, and almost unbelievably lost and out of the way). I didn't realize this until I looked East and saw the "Y" lit up on the side of the mountain. It looked like I was looking down from space. And there was a large dark mass between me and the rest of Provo, which I knew had to be the giant lake. So I turned around and drove back, wondering how 6 years of residence did not prevent that from happening. Oh well.
I stopped back by Annette's office on the way home to pick up some clothes and books I had left there. The building was dark and quiet and didn't seem like the place that I had had so many laughs and anti-laughs for three years. Instead it just seemed like the base for our graduation festivities. I can't really explain it. It just sort of took on a new persona (that building always had a persona to me) and it wasn't the one that it had consistently been for so long. So wondering when the nostalgia would boot out the celebration frenzy, I flipped off the light and headed out with a pile of what was probably mostly my stuff.
As I packed everything I own into my and Krishelle's cars yesterday, stopping one more time by the school to find Annette cleaning out her office, or attempting to, I thought about what it was that I really gained from this whole experience. An education and a degree--that's obvious. But it feels like I care much more about this thing than the generic understanding of what an education and a degree would produce. A new sense of belonging? Unprecedented confidence? A second family? Direction? Comprehension of true dedication? Perspective? An almost unlimited supply of new strange experiences to draw from? I'm sure it's all of those things, and something bigger that I can't really seem to wrap my mind or vocabulary around. I just know that whatever it is I gained, it's something that I don't think I would trade for anything. It's something that manifests itself through encouraging emails from classmates sent from opposite sides of the world when second semester grades come out. Through late nights in a professor's office to clean up an article, not feeling so tedious or boring because the sense of accomplishment and teamwork from focused friends relentlessly continues past midnight. Through the calm sense that slack will be picked up without complaint by consistent back-scratchers after desperately trying not to leave any slack in the first place. I don't want to forget any of it. But even if I do, it all still happened, and forgetting any of it can't change the fact that I'm different because of it.
So long days of picturing the law building when someone talks about home. Farewell naps at my carrel and trips across campus to buy chocolate with a good friend when naps and chocolate are needed for coping with competitive stress. Good bye late night competitions, frantic brief writing, crackers and cheese on Fridays, Halloween parades with homemade costumes, awkward professor run-ins in bathrooms and stairwells, lunch on the grass, weekend runs in the canyon, wraps, pre-5k trash-talking, taking 25 minutes to get anywhere because of the great friends lining the path, embarrassing unintentional emails, study room pot-lucks, finger-pointing, arguing, waiting for competition results emails late at night in the basement with best friends, summer reunion barbeque's, fighting about accurate recollections of memories, and laughing endlessly over jokes that never get old, even if some won't admit it.
Onto the next chapter, or book, or page---however that metaphor goes. Here's to hoping for a bright future lit by the luminous bon-fire that now sits in the past, showing the best ways for life to Just Get Stranger~
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The End?
It is finished.
Here I sit on my bed having just eaten a giant bowl of blueberries (I didn't realize I had a huge bag of blueberries until today and now I'm frantically engaging in my pre-move tradition of masticating every bit of food in my possession in my final hours of current-residence so as not to let anything go to waste when I cram 26 years of life into my tiny car and haul it, once again, off to the unknown just a few short days from now). My final final of all of law school (and of my whole academic career) ran its course this morning. Yesterday I got to school sometime around 7:00 AM and frantically prepared for my afternoon final, only to immediately return to CTU (an office in the school my friends and I have completely taken over and named after Jack Baur's 24 "counter terrorist unit") to learn everything there is to know about wills and estates by the following morning.
Around 2:00 AM, it became very clear that we would not be going home before our final as there was still much left to do. And so it went. It was sometime around the witching hour when we were talking about what happens when a beneficiary predeceases the testator of a will that Annette very seriously said, sort of under her breath, "I really hope I predecease this final." This is making me laugh, even now. But I understood exactly what she was feeling. It wasn't just the two weeks of brutal finals, politicking, studying, competing, soul-searching, and nail-biting that had gotten us to the pits of intellectual fatigue by last night. It was the end of three long years of running at full speed, and we knew it. We felt the weight of those three years on us as we tried to learn one more thing, and tried to help one another learn one more thing, so we could take one more final so that we could finally move on to whatever it is that we are now supposed to move on to.
And just like that, the sun came up while we sat in CTU in our final preparation moments before we descended to the first floor to take our last final. I spent the afternoon passing on information to next year's 3L class in several meetings, and then cleaned out my carrel and CTU, finding four pairs of pants and an unlimited supply of Tupperware that had migrated to the school over the year. And after 32 straight hours without leaving the building, I took my pile of stuff and left, not yet feeling everything that is my life right now sort of disappear as I walked out of the building. Maybe that feeling will come after I've rested long enough to be able to think clearly enough to recognize significance. Maybe it will come after the craziness of graduation dissipates over the next two days as 150 of my closest friends and I put on awkwardly uncomfortable robes and hoods and march around Provo in front of gawking family members and friends who have been so supportive of our quest over the years, even without really seeing what that quest looks like in CTU at 3:00 in the morning on the last night of academic life. Or maybe it will all hit me as I take that car-load of everything I own and leave Provo after six years of residency this coming Saturday.
There is no doubt I'll miss it. There is no doubt that I'll look at this law school experience as one of the happiest times of my life. A time where I learned about friendship and family, diligence and struggle, discouragement and hope. And as time wears on, I'm sure the funny, light, and positive memories will become more prevalent in my ever growing nostalgia for something that has made me such a different person than I was three years ago.
I'm supposed to be writing a graduation speech right now to deliver in less than 48 hours. As I try to gather my thoughts, I have no idea what to say, in part because I have no idea what I feel (also, there are several thousand people attending this thing and I don't even know where to begin in trying to address a crowd like this). I'll probably awkwardly type up a few cliche phrases and climb into bed, hoping that tomorrow it will all come together. Who knows--maybe I'll predecease graduation.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Here I sit on my bed having just eaten a giant bowl of blueberries (I didn't realize I had a huge bag of blueberries until today and now I'm frantically engaging in my pre-move tradition of masticating every bit of food in my possession in my final hours of current-residence so as not to let anything go to waste when I cram 26 years of life into my tiny car and haul it, once again, off to the unknown just a few short days from now). My final final of all of law school (and of my whole academic career) ran its course this morning. Yesterday I got to school sometime around 7:00 AM and frantically prepared for my afternoon final, only to immediately return to CTU (an office in the school my friends and I have completely taken over and named after Jack Baur's 24 "counter terrorist unit") to learn everything there is to know about wills and estates by the following morning.
Around 2:00 AM, it became very clear that we would not be going home before our final as there was still much left to do. And so it went. It was sometime around the witching hour when we were talking about what happens when a beneficiary predeceases the testator of a will that Annette very seriously said, sort of under her breath, "I really hope I predecease this final." This is making me laugh, even now. But I understood exactly what she was feeling. It wasn't just the two weeks of brutal finals, politicking, studying, competing, soul-searching, and nail-biting that had gotten us to the pits of intellectual fatigue by last night. It was the end of three long years of running at full speed, and we knew it. We felt the weight of those three years on us as we tried to learn one more thing, and tried to help one another learn one more thing, so we could take one more final so that we could finally move on to whatever it is that we are now supposed to move on to.
And just like that, the sun came up while we sat in CTU in our final preparation moments before we descended to the first floor to take our last final. I spent the afternoon passing on information to next year's 3L class in several meetings, and then cleaned out my carrel and CTU, finding four pairs of pants and an unlimited supply of Tupperware that had migrated to the school over the year. And after 32 straight hours without leaving the building, I took my pile of stuff and left, not yet feeling everything that is my life right now sort of disappear as I walked out of the building. Maybe that feeling will come after I've rested long enough to be able to think clearly enough to recognize significance. Maybe it will come after the craziness of graduation dissipates over the next two days as 150 of my closest friends and I put on awkwardly uncomfortable robes and hoods and march around Provo in front of gawking family members and friends who have been so supportive of our quest over the years, even without really seeing what that quest looks like in CTU at 3:00 in the morning on the last night of academic life. Or maybe it will all hit me as I take that car-load of everything I own and leave Provo after six years of residency this coming Saturday.
There is no doubt I'll miss it. There is no doubt that I'll look at this law school experience as one of the happiest times of my life. A time where I learned about friendship and family, diligence and struggle, discouragement and hope. And as time wears on, I'm sure the funny, light, and positive memories will become more prevalent in my ever growing nostalgia for something that has made me such a different person than I was three years ago.
I'm supposed to be writing a graduation speech right now to deliver in less than 48 hours. As I try to gather my thoughts, I have no idea what to say, in part because I have no idea what I feel (also, there are several thousand people attending this thing and I don't even know where to begin in trying to address a crowd like this). I'll probably awkwardly type up a few cliche phrases and climb into bed, hoping that tomorrow it will all come together. Who knows--maybe I'll predecease graduation.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Operation Breakfast Overload
On Wednesday morning at 8:30 I updated my Facebook status (you know, Facebook. The social network that tears people apart). Less than 48 hours later, this status had a 100+ comment thread, had provoked mass emailing, messages from the administration, two Facebook groups, an elaborate prank, secret leafleting of falsified satirical press releases, and a possibly altered election result. Thank you, untameable technology for two days of shocking entertainment.
Rewind to a few weeks ago . . .
My dear friend Annette has served as the student body president at the law school this year and has done a fantastic job doing whatever it is student government leaders are supposed to do (promising the "best year ever!" and then delivering, I suppose). Particularly, I have watched her answer email complaints, attend 245 meetings per day, and gracefully put out a new fire every hour, on the hour, for about ten months now, without breaking a sweat.
The 1Ls turned in a large writing assignment a few weeks ago, bright and early one Monday morning. For reasons still not clear to any of us, their writing professors emailed the 1L class, explaining that Annette and the rest of the SBA board members would provide the 1Ls with a congratulatory breakfast on that Monday morning. The problem: Annette never made this commitment, nor was she ever aware that the professors had made this promise on her behalf. Not a big deal, you might think; but evidently, it was to some because within hours of the breakfast disappointment, Annette had received complaint emails from members of the 1L class who apparently were on the brink of starvation and whose lives depended upon Annette feeding them. After an unsuccessful attempt to contact the professors responsible for the mix-up so that they could restore Annette's reputation as a non-flake, Annette communicated with the 1L class on her own and explained that there was a miscommunication and that she, in fact, had never made such a promise and certainly would have delivered had she done so.
This was not enough for at least one 1L, who continued to complain about the SBA's alleged failures; and these complaints culminated in an interesting campaign tactic earlier this week. This 1L (we'll call him "Home-boy") decided to run for student body president for his second year, a position typically occupied by a third year student. Home-boy was rude to Annette, continued his complaints about her, and then passed out his campaign flyers to everyone's carrels on Wednesday morning. The flyer read, "When [home-boy] promises breakfast, [home-boy] brings breakfast." A bit defensive of Annette and quite tired of the lack of appreciation for everything she has done for everyone, including home-boy, I responded with the following Facebook status update: "Eli is wondering whether a 1L's passive-aggressive attacks on Annette Thacker in his SBA campaign flyers is really going to be an effective approach. Particularly since it's well accepted that Thacker is likely the best president of anything anyone has ever seen (and that includes Pres. Palmer from 24)."
Feeling that I had done my Christian duty to defend my friend's honor, and truly not expecting anything to come of it, I went about my business. Then the madness ensued.
Several people asked around for the full story, commented on this post, and immediately jumped to the defense of Annette. In the meantime, another 1L composed a hilarious email that any 13 year old girl with a vendetta couldn't have done any better and spammed the entire 1L class, pleading with his peers to vote for home-boy and allow the four 2L candidates to split the vote among the upper classes so that the 1L class could "take control of the school." The administration responded to this by reminding everyone of the anti-spamming policy. But this was well beyond a ridiculous email by this point.
"Operation Breakfast Overload" was well on its way. Someone had the idea to fulfill the promise Annette never made by actually bringing home-boy breakfast. And a lot of it. On Thursday morning while I was at work in Salt Lake, the pictures came trickling in as several dozen of my light-hearted and creative classmates dropped off boxes of cereal, home-made muffins, pancakes, balloons, yogurt, and several other popular breakfast items, all at his carrel while home-boy sat in class. In the meantime, the 1L "spam" email had gone viral and had made it around the non-1L classes thirty or forty times, several campaign tactics were altered to draw more votes for the 2L candidates, and an all-out war had been waged on my Facebook page between unlikely combatants.
On Friday the civil war officially ended as a 2L candidate was named victor. I, of course, hope that home-boy doesn't have hard feelings and does recognize that the vast majority of the class intended no harm in what most definitely was a great overreaction to a campaign flyer that was probably intended to be not much more than a subtle joke. But overreaction is what law students do best.
Most of us who didn't really ever have a dog in the fight, but still found the entire thing absolutely the most entertaining thing we had witnessed since 1996, wondered afterwards how so much activity could result from one half-joking status update on Facebook.
Gosh I'm going to miss high school.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Rewind to a few weeks ago . . .
My dear friend Annette has served as the student body president at the law school this year and has done a fantastic job doing whatever it is student government leaders are supposed to do (promising the "best year ever!" and then delivering, I suppose). Particularly, I have watched her answer email complaints, attend 245 meetings per day, and gracefully put out a new fire every hour, on the hour, for about ten months now, without breaking a sweat.
The 1Ls turned in a large writing assignment a few weeks ago, bright and early one Monday morning. For reasons still not clear to any of us, their writing professors emailed the 1L class, explaining that Annette and the rest of the SBA board members would provide the 1Ls with a congratulatory breakfast on that Monday morning. The problem: Annette never made this commitment, nor was she ever aware that the professors had made this promise on her behalf. Not a big deal, you might think; but evidently, it was to some because within hours of the breakfast disappointment, Annette had received complaint emails from members of the 1L class who apparently were on the brink of starvation and whose lives depended upon Annette feeding them. After an unsuccessful attempt to contact the professors responsible for the mix-up so that they could restore Annette's reputation as a non-flake, Annette communicated with the 1L class on her own and explained that there was a miscommunication and that she, in fact, had never made such a promise and certainly would have delivered had she done so.
This was not enough for at least one 1L, who continued to complain about the SBA's alleged failures; and these complaints culminated in an interesting campaign tactic earlier this week. This 1L (we'll call him "Home-boy") decided to run for student body president for his second year, a position typically occupied by a third year student. Home-boy was rude to Annette, continued his complaints about her, and then passed out his campaign flyers to everyone's carrels on Wednesday morning. The flyer read, "When [home-boy] promises breakfast, [home-boy] brings breakfast." A bit defensive of Annette and quite tired of the lack of appreciation for everything she has done for everyone, including home-boy, I responded with the following Facebook status update: "Eli is wondering whether a 1L's passive-aggressive attacks on Annette Thacker in his SBA campaign flyers is really going to be an effective approach. Particularly since it's well accepted that Thacker is likely the best president of anything anyone has ever seen (and that includes Pres. Palmer from 24)."
Feeling that I had done my Christian duty to defend my friend's honor, and truly not expecting anything to come of it, I went about my business. Then the madness ensued.
Several people asked around for the full story, commented on this post, and immediately jumped to the defense of Annette. In the meantime, another 1L composed a hilarious email that any 13 year old girl with a vendetta couldn't have done any better and spammed the entire 1L class, pleading with his peers to vote for home-boy and allow the four 2L candidates to split the vote among the upper classes so that the 1L class could "take control of the school." The administration responded to this by reminding everyone of the anti-spamming policy. But this was well beyond a ridiculous email by this point.
"Operation Breakfast Overload" was well on its way. Someone had the idea to fulfill the promise Annette never made by actually bringing home-boy breakfast. And a lot of it. On Thursday morning while I was at work in Salt Lake, the pictures came trickling in as several dozen of my light-hearted and creative classmates dropped off boxes of cereal, home-made muffins, pancakes, balloons, yogurt, and several other popular breakfast items, all at his carrel while home-boy sat in class. In the meantime, the 1L "spam" email had gone viral and had made it around the non-1L classes thirty or forty times, several campaign tactics were altered to draw more votes for the 2L candidates, and an all-out war had been waged on my Facebook page between unlikely combatants.
On Friday the civil war officially ended as a 2L candidate was named victor. I, of course, hope that home-boy doesn't have hard feelings and does recognize that the vast majority of the class intended no harm in what most definitely was a great overreaction to a campaign flyer that was probably intended to be not much more than a subtle joke. But overreaction is what law students do best.
Most of us who didn't really ever have a dog in the fight, but still found the entire thing absolutely the most entertaining thing we had witnessed since 1996, wondered afterwards how so much activity could result from one half-joking status update on Facebook.
Gosh I'm going to miss high school.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Friday, March 11, 2011
New York. New York.
The highly anticipated New York trip came and went. This was for the moot court ABA national competition. At BYU, four oralists and two brief writers qualify for the BYU national team during their second year to compete at the national competition for their third year. So I've been anticipating this competition for some time now. And it finally came last Wednesday.
Wednesday:
Our travel group of six boarded a plane for JFK. Memorable moments on the flight: my teammate Annie flossed with a string she found in her clothing because "it was an emergency" and then insisted on showing me everything she was able to pull out of her teeth as if to justify her questionable public-clothes-flossing decision. At JFK we climbed into sketchy black automobiles and asked strangers to drive us to Brooklyn in the middle of the night; one of the drivers, for reasons we still don't know, at one point put the car in reverse on a quiet street and drove at full speed for what seemed to be 30 or 40 minutes, only to put the car back into drive and cover the distance he had just back-tracked.
Thursday:
Annie was my oralist partner and Jon was our official brief writer/bailiff. Sometime on Thursday Annie and I discovered that Jon would make an amazing life out of being an assistant of some sort because for the next three days, neither of us made a single decision for ourselves (and when we finally did on Sunday, disaster. Details to come). So Jon practiced our arguments with us, told us where to go, answered affirmatively just as we requested each time we asked whether we looked like we fit our team name ("Team Sexy"), etc. On Thursday night we argued in our first round and did very well, beating the team we went up against by a pretty big margin, and getting the highest scores of anyone judged by our set of judges. We were on our way. Moot court competitions are about appellate advocacy so the way the rounds work is there is a panel of judges who pester us with difficult questions for 15 minutes at a time while we try to argue our case. As you can imagine, this can be an incredibly intimidating (but totally fun, in the same way that marathon running is fun) experience.
Friday:
More of the same: reading, practicing our arguments, having Jon tell us exactly what to do and where to go. About an hour before it was time to leave for the courthouse we also started our "beautification" process (named by Annie) in which we beautified to the best of our abilities. My beautification process was a lot simpler than Annie's. Nonetheless, I foolishly complained about it and said I was grateful I didn't have to do it very often, after which I was "informed" (in a voice that most people use to scold) that life is not fair because apparently my female friends are required by law to participate in beautification every single day of their lives. Who knew.
Our Friday night round went as well as the Thursday night round, and after it was over we were seeded 5th out of 39 teams based on our team scores.
Saturday:
Another round in the morning. Another victory. We were getting exhausted by this point but having the time of our lives. Eventually on Saturday we were beat out in a very disappointing and shocking tie-breaker in semi-finals. Depression ensued. We stuck around for the end of the competition when all of the final results would be announced. Somewhere between 90 and 100 individuals argued in the competition and they gave out awards for the top ten individual oralists. I knew my scores were decent and I was hoping to end up in the top ten but thought it would be close. They started announcing the top ten and by the time they got to six, I was sure I hadn't made it. But, alas, I was third. Third! While I think Annie and I should have won the stupid thing, and I was quite sad we didn't, I couldn't be too sad about finishing third overall.
On Saturday night, we hit the city (along with all 7 billion other people on the planet (which means that you, too, were there that night)), wandered like zombies, and ate everything in sight.
Sunday:
Annie and I, sure that we were responsible enough to venture out without Jon to guide us, climbed aboard a Subway train and headed for what we thought was going to be some place near Central Park. When we exited, we were in a quiet neighborhood that looked pretty rundown. We walked through it, not worried one bit, until the following conversation took place:
Eli: Why does this part of the city seem so dead?
Annie: Maybe everyone is still sleeping?
Eli: Something seems strange about this place.
Annie: Hang on, let me check my clothing for loose string so I can start flossing again (ok, she didn't say that, but I don't remember what she said and I just wanted to remind you all about the nasty flossing experience from the plane).
Eli: Wait. Why does that sign say "Harlem" on that building?
Annie: Um . . . Oh it's probably just a building called Harlem.
Eli: Yeah, I'm sure that's it.
Annie: Oh . . . and that store must just be called, "Harlem market."
Eli: Now that I look around, everything seems to say "Harlem" on it.
Annie: So, are we in Harlem?
Eli: I think so.
Annie & Eli: [Both silently replaying in their heads every horror movie they've ever seen clips of that took place in Harlem. Eli also hears Cathie's voice in his head from Wednesday night, informing him that New York is full of people who will try to kill him].
Suddenly, and probably dramatically, Annie and I clung to one another with all our might and jog-walked for the next 15 minutes until we found a subway, grabbed onto the sides of the next train, and hung on until Tuesday at 4:13.
Then we attempted lunch, where Annie was served something that they claimed was "egg" but looked and tasted more like something that was scooped up off of the side-walk on a really busy and hot day, dyed yellow, and then kept uncovered in a refrigerator next to expired milk for three days until the electricity went out because someone forgot to pay the bill at which point it sat for another four days in the mostly shut room temperature refrigerator air. Plus, add salt.
So we stopped at forty or fifty more places and ate again and again, walking through Central Park along the way (which we miraculously found by ourselves after our life-changing experiences on the streets of Harlem (we're thinking about writing a book now that we're experts on rough neighborhood life (we'll probably call it, "Wrong Subway Stop") (and by the way, I'm told that Harlem isn't really so bad anymore anyway. When I looked it up online, I was told that Brooklyn is the sketch part of town now. Ironically, we were staying in Brooklyn and thought it was rather pleasant (evidently we are not good at recognizing true sketch)))).
We got to JFK about an hour before our flight. Climbed aboard the plane on time and waited for our departure. We were so pleased to be told that we would be sitting in the plane for about an hour and a half before taking off because, what must have been the storm of the century, had delayed some passengers who needed to board our plane; they were delayed for about 13 seconds, thus exceeding the flexibility limits of the JFK airport to the point of rendering our escape from NYC impossible without a long miserable wait. Eventually Mr. jokey jokey pilot, who evidently does not know when it's time to be a stand-up comedian and when it's time to Rambo the whole damn thing and just take off without permission, got on the intercom, cracked a few jokes, and then informed us that because JFK was apparently rebuilding the entire runway from scratch, we would be sitting on the plane for a few more hours. Fortunately Mr. jokey jokey pilot did make sure to explain to us that he was also disappointed in the delay and that we weren't the only ones suffering (this calmed all of us down, and made each of us feel better that our pilot, who was responsible for flying 800 billion pounds of materials across our nation through storms and in the middle of the night, was feeling irritable and cranky). 397 hours later, we arrived in Salt Lake City, grumpy, tired, and with the realization that reality would be hitting us in our first class of the week in just a few short hours.
But Annie and I are pretty sure we can handle anything now that we've experienced the gang life.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Wednesday:
Our travel group of six boarded a plane for JFK. Memorable moments on the flight: my teammate Annie flossed with a string she found in her clothing because "it was an emergency" and then insisted on showing me everything she was able to pull out of her teeth as if to justify her questionable public-clothes-flossing decision. At JFK we climbed into sketchy black automobiles and asked strangers to drive us to Brooklyn in the middle of the night; one of the drivers, for reasons we still don't know, at one point put the car in reverse on a quiet street and drove at full speed for what seemed to be 30 or 40 minutes, only to put the car back into drive and cover the distance he had just back-tracked.
Thursday:
Annie was my oralist partner and Jon was our official brief writer/bailiff. Sometime on Thursday Annie and I discovered that Jon would make an amazing life out of being an assistant of some sort because for the next three days, neither of us made a single decision for ourselves (and when we finally did on Sunday, disaster. Details to come). So Jon practiced our arguments with us, told us where to go, answered affirmatively just as we requested each time we asked whether we looked like we fit our team name ("Team Sexy"), etc. On Thursday night we argued in our first round and did very well, beating the team we went up against by a pretty big margin, and getting the highest scores of anyone judged by our set of judges. We were on our way. Moot court competitions are about appellate advocacy so the way the rounds work is there is a panel of judges who pester us with difficult questions for 15 minutes at a time while we try to argue our case. As you can imagine, this can be an incredibly intimidating (but totally fun, in the same way that marathon running is fun) experience.
Friday:
More of the same: reading, practicing our arguments, having Jon tell us exactly what to do and where to go. About an hour before it was time to leave for the courthouse we also started our "beautification" process (named by Annie) in which we beautified to the best of our abilities. My beautification process was a lot simpler than Annie's. Nonetheless, I foolishly complained about it and said I was grateful I didn't have to do it very often, after which I was "informed" (in a voice that most people use to scold) that life is not fair because apparently my female friends are required by law to participate in beautification every single day of their lives. Who knew.
Our Friday night round went as well as the Thursday night round, and after it was over we were seeded 5th out of 39 teams based on our team scores.
Saturday:
Another round in the morning. Another victory. We were getting exhausted by this point but having the time of our lives. Eventually on Saturday we were beat out in a very disappointing and shocking tie-breaker in semi-finals. Depression ensued. We stuck around for the end of the competition when all of the final results would be announced. Somewhere between 90 and 100 individuals argued in the competition and they gave out awards for the top ten individual oralists. I knew my scores were decent and I was hoping to end up in the top ten but thought it would be close. They started announcing the top ten and by the time they got to six, I was sure I hadn't made it. But, alas, I was third. Third! While I think Annie and I should have won the stupid thing, and I was quite sad we didn't, I couldn't be too sad about finishing third overall.
On Saturday night, we hit the city (along with all 7 billion other people on the planet (which means that you, too, were there that night)), wandered like zombies, and ate everything in sight.
Sunday:
Annie and I, sure that we were responsible enough to venture out without Jon to guide us, climbed aboard a Subway train and headed for what we thought was going to be some place near Central Park. When we exited, we were in a quiet neighborhood that looked pretty rundown. We walked through it, not worried one bit, until the following conversation took place:
Eli: Why does this part of the city seem so dead?
Annie: Maybe everyone is still sleeping?
Eli: Something seems strange about this place.
Annie: Hang on, let me check my clothing for loose string so I can start flossing again (ok, she didn't say that, but I don't remember what she said and I just wanted to remind you all about the nasty flossing experience from the plane).
Eli: Wait. Why does that sign say "Harlem" on that building?
Annie: Um . . . Oh it's probably just a building called Harlem.
Eli: Yeah, I'm sure that's it.
Annie: Oh . . . and that store must just be called, "Harlem market."
Eli: Now that I look around, everything seems to say "Harlem" on it.
Annie: So, are we in Harlem?
Eli: I think so.
Annie & Eli: [Both silently replaying in their heads every horror movie they've ever seen clips of that took place in Harlem. Eli also hears Cathie's voice in his head from Wednesday night, informing him that New York is full of people who will try to kill him].
Suddenly, and probably dramatically, Annie and I clung to one another with all our might and jog-walked for the next 15 minutes until we found a subway, grabbed onto the sides of the next train, and hung on until Tuesday at 4:13.
Then we attempted lunch, where Annie was served something that they claimed was "egg" but looked and tasted more like something that was scooped up off of the side-walk on a really busy and hot day, dyed yellow, and then kept uncovered in a refrigerator next to expired milk for three days until the electricity went out because someone forgot to pay the bill at which point it sat for another four days in the mostly shut room temperature refrigerator air. Plus, add salt.
So we stopped at forty or fifty more places and ate again and again, walking through Central Park along the way (which we miraculously found by ourselves after our life-changing experiences on the streets of Harlem (we're thinking about writing a book now that we're experts on rough neighborhood life (we'll probably call it, "Wrong Subway Stop") (and by the way, I'm told that Harlem isn't really so bad anymore anyway. When I looked it up online, I was told that Brooklyn is the sketch part of town now. Ironically, we were staying in Brooklyn and thought it was rather pleasant (evidently we are not good at recognizing true sketch)))).
We got to JFK about an hour before our flight. Climbed aboard the plane on time and waited for our departure. We were so pleased to be told that we would be sitting in the plane for about an hour and a half before taking off because, what must have been the storm of the century, had delayed some passengers who needed to board our plane; they were delayed for about 13 seconds, thus exceeding the flexibility limits of the JFK airport to the point of rendering our escape from NYC impossible without a long miserable wait. Eventually Mr. jokey jokey pilot, who evidently does not know when it's time to be a stand-up comedian and when it's time to Rambo the whole damn thing and just take off without permission, got on the intercom, cracked a few jokes, and then informed us that because JFK was apparently rebuilding the entire runway from scratch, we would be sitting on the plane for a few more hours. Fortunately Mr. jokey jokey pilot did make sure to explain to us that he was also disappointed in the delay and that we weren't the only ones suffering (this calmed all of us down, and made each of us feel better that our pilot, who was responsible for flying 800 billion pounds of materials across our nation through storms and in the middle of the night, was feeling irritable and cranky). 397 hours later, we arrived in Salt Lake City, grumpy, tired, and with the realization that reality would be hitting us in our first class of the week in just a few short hours.
But Annie and I are pretty sure we can handle anything now that we've experienced the gang life.
~It Just Gets Stranger
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| Annie and I right before our first round. |
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Laughing on the Bus, Playing Games with the Faces
When I take the bus to SLC on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, it's always a mad rush of drama and fatigue. The bus leaves at about 6:30AM so I have to be up and then out the door pretty early. Because I like a close call, I'm usually out the door about 2 minutes later than I should be (I think this part of me is a manifestation of rebellion, resulting from the number of times Bob made us 6 hours early to everything we ever attended growing up. Although in my ever growing maturity and acceptance of adulthood, I'm starting to see the wisdom in the 6 hours early rule for anything I need to attend in Provo that requires me to find a parking place). Then the race begins. By the time I hop onto the road where I park and catch the bus stop, I can usually see the bus in my rear view. Then starts my first of a series of judgment calls about whether or not I'm going to have enough time to park and then run to the stop or whether I should drive on to the next stop after I've gained a little more distance on the bus. Of course during this whole process I like to imagine that I'm Jack Bauer in 24 and there are terrorists aboard the bus (which, let's be honest, there might be). Last Tuesday was an ordinary morning up through the bus chase scene, until I actually got onto the bus.
Whenever I climb aboard I do a quick cursory glance to decide who I'm going to sit by. To back up a bit, when I get on the bus in the mornings, there are always enough empty seats that I could go and sit on a completely empty row. The express bus that I take has seating like a tour bus so it's relatively comfortable but if you are sitting right next to someone, there isn't a lot of breathing room, so it's always nice to get a whole row to yourself. But what I have found (and for reasons I'll never be able to explain, it took me about four months to figure this out), by the time the bus makes its last stop in Provo, the thing is entirely full and nobody has a row to themselves at all. Recently I decided that it was best to sit right next to someone from the very beginning because at least then I could take control of the bus-mate decision-making process and not get stuck next to talkative crazy stinky guy who is the size of seven people, falls asleep on top of whomever he is sitting by, drools, and then gets all kinds of cranky when you ask him to move so you can get off at your stop. Unfortunately I always feel a little strange when I do sit next to someone despite the abundance of empty rows and I'm never quite sure whether I should turn to them and explain the situation and let them know that what I'm doing is for both of our benefit (because I am not stinky, talkative, cranky, drooling, or the size of seven people) or just let them wonder whether I'm in love with them.
So on Tuesday I did my cursory glance, looking for someone who was small, clean, and quiet so I wouldn't have to touch, smell, or talk to anyone on the dark bus at 6:30 in the morning. I saw a girl toward the front that fit the bill and I plopped down next to her and decided against explaining the process. And so we rode. We rode for almost an hour and half right next to one another. Because the seats are so small and close together with no arm-rest between them, we rode arm against arm the entire way and didn't say a word to one another or look at one another.
Finally we approached my stop and I reached down to gather my things and noticed her security badge with her name. For an hour and a half I had been sitting next to my cousin and neither of us ever noticed. And this wasn't one of those cousins that I see at family reunions and wonder whether they are actually related or just crashing the place for the food (which would be a mistake--most family reunions I've been to do not have great food and the vast majority of the pot-luck items are questionable at best, toxic at worst). In fact, this is one of my very favorite cousins. I turned to her and tapped her arm. She looked at me and said in a tone that meant she was truly disappointed in herself, "what? Are you serious?" We said a quick hello and I jumped off the bus.
On Thursday she saved me a seat. I'm happy to have a bus friend now who is consistently small and clean. I've lost the talkative battle but I'm ok with that.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Whenever I climb aboard I do a quick cursory glance to decide who I'm going to sit by. To back up a bit, when I get on the bus in the mornings, there are always enough empty seats that I could go and sit on a completely empty row. The express bus that I take has seating like a tour bus so it's relatively comfortable but if you are sitting right next to someone, there isn't a lot of breathing room, so it's always nice to get a whole row to yourself. But what I have found (and for reasons I'll never be able to explain, it took me about four months to figure this out), by the time the bus makes its last stop in Provo, the thing is entirely full and nobody has a row to themselves at all. Recently I decided that it was best to sit right next to someone from the very beginning because at least then I could take control of the bus-mate decision-making process and not get stuck next to talkative crazy stinky guy who is the size of seven people, falls asleep on top of whomever he is sitting by, drools, and then gets all kinds of cranky when you ask him to move so you can get off at your stop. Unfortunately I always feel a little strange when I do sit next to someone despite the abundance of empty rows and I'm never quite sure whether I should turn to them and explain the situation and let them know that what I'm doing is for both of our benefit (because I am not stinky, talkative, cranky, drooling, or the size of seven people) or just let them wonder whether I'm in love with them.
So on Tuesday I did my cursory glance, looking for someone who was small, clean, and quiet so I wouldn't have to touch, smell, or talk to anyone on the dark bus at 6:30 in the morning. I saw a girl toward the front that fit the bill and I plopped down next to her and decided against explaining the process. And so we rode. We rode for almost an hour and half right next to one another. Because the seats are so small and close together with no arm-rest between them, we rode arm against arm the entire way and didn't say a word to one another or look at one another.
Finally we approached my stop and I reached down to gather my things and noticed her security badge with her name. For an hour and a half I had been sitting next to my cousin and neither of us ever noticed. And this wasn't one of those cousins that I see at family reunions and wonder whether they are actually related or just crashing the place for the food (which would be a mistake--most family reunions I've been to do not have great food and the vast majority of the pot-luck items are questionable at best, toxic at worst). In fact, this is one of my very favorite cousins. I turned to her and tapped her arm. She looked at me and said in a tone that meant she was truly disappointed in herself, "what? Are you serious?" We said a quick hello and I jumped off the bus.
On Thursday she saved me a seat. I'm happy to have a bus friend now who is consistently small and clean. I've lost the talkative battle but I'm ok with that.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Trial Advocacy, DC
Last week my Law School travel group went to Washington DC for our trial advocacy competition. As expected, it was full of laughs and strange.
Wednesday:
We left on Wednesday afternoon after raiding the CSO of all it's candy and cake, even swiping a chocolate box full of an assortment of chocolates we later found to be as confusing to decipher as figuring out why people watch Glee. I got flack for changing my seats on the plane so I would not sit by anyone (friend or stranger) because I had every intention of getting my first wink of sleep in 12 years on every leg of our trek. About half-way to DC, Alex found me on the plane and offered me some chocolate out of our gifted chocolate box. 3/4 of them had been gnawed on and placed back in the box (courtesy of Mary Beth and Joseph who "just wanted to see what kind they were"). Every single chocolate looked exactly the same, so I couldn't blame my friends and their rodent-like-nibbling-habits for not being able to effectively use the chocolate key card in the box to find out which one was apricot and which one was dung. I then nibbled on the remaining 1/4 only to remember that I don't really like chocolate that much.
We arrived in DC and immediately put Jordan in charge (because he is the most responsible human-being any of us has ever met. I bet he has food storage and a 401k (whatever that is!)). Jordan got our rental van and drove us to our hotel. Upon arriving, we discovered something about the van: we think it may have been the main character in that horror movie from the '80s where machines take over the world (Maximum Overdrive?) because it did things without being prompted, always at the inconvenience of every one of us. For example: As Jordan and I exited the vehicle from the front to go check into the hotel, all the doors locked and the remaining four (grown-ups, mind you) suddenly found themselves trapped, and apparently convinced that they were in sealed airtight capsule with a limited oxygen supply. I watched as the mild frustration turned into all-out-panic in a matter of 60 seconds which resulted in four terrified people pounding on windows and screaming. I tried to explain over their yelling that there wasn't much I could do until they unlocked the doors but it never sank in (nobody thinks clearly mid-panic, and this was panic). Eventually the doors magically opened on their own and four exhausted adults fell out of the vehicle gasping for air; the van seemed to be laughing.
Thursday:
We trapped ourselves in our hotel rooms all day, frantically taking care of last minute preparations for our first round that would begin that night. Strangely Jeff and I had a room that was about 35 times bigger than anyone else's, so we became the trial ad headquarters.
The first round was fun and stressful, lasting almost five hours total. Jeff was my partner and Alex acted as one of our witnesses. We had to do direct examinations of three witnesses so the other two were provided by the competition and I got 15 minutes before the round to sit down with them and try to figure out what they were going to say. Combine that with the fact that we had no information on the defense witnesses and so had to wait literally until the moment it was time to cross-examine them to figure out what the heck we were going to say, and you understand that it was a pretty stressful competition.
Friday:
We drove out to the DC temple and some waterfall during the day (Jordan swore the official name of the place was "The Great Falls" which then prompted a series of jokes about what else they could have named the place. This, of course, went on for about 30 minutes longer than it should have . Options included: Mediocre Falls, Not As Great As Great Falls, and Not Worth a Trip By Itself But If You're In The Neighborhood Maybe Take A Minute And Stop By Falls). Then it was back to the hotel to tweak our preparations for the Friday night round which went more smoothly than the night before. After the round we had a small banquet to attend where they recognized and had us clap for every single person who has ever lived, before telling us who was moving on to quarter-finals from the 24 teams that originally started. Four prosecution teams and four defense teams moved on. Two of those prosecution teams were both of our BYU teams. We were excited and proud of how we had done. The competition gave us some new information that night (a photograph and a dr.'s note) and sent us home to prepare to compete early the next morning. It was a sort of late night, partly because we were frantically planning, but also because the several teams from other schools that were staying on our floor and didn't make it to quarter-finals got unbelievably drunk, pounded on the walls, and screamed obscenities at us and about our religion until about 3:00 AM. It didn't bother me too much because I don't sleep anyway so I appreciated the entertainment and found myself grateful once again that I go to a school with nice people that would never, ever, do any of that (at least I like to think so). I'm positive that the schools these people were representing are full of their own nice people as well; it's too bad the schools didn't draw from that pool of people to choose who to send to represent.
Saturday:
Quart-finals began bright and early. It was another 5 hour round with a slightly aggressive team (one who posted on its school website that they defeated us, despite that not at all being true--seriously people, the Internet is accessible to everyone and if you post lies about something that is verifiable, you're taking a risk). Mary Beth and Joseph moved on to semi-finals but Jeff and I were done (always a bitter-sweet thing--bitter because victory is sweet, and sweet because 5-hour rounds are bitter). Joseph and Mary Beth competed in semi-finals against a team from the same school as the team we went up against in quarter-finals--another one whose social skills and professionalism I was also not impressed with. Mary Beth and Joseph didn't move on to finals so we were finished with the competition on Saturday afternoon, and proud of how we had done.
Sunday:
Our flight didn't leave until the evening so we had most of the day to tour our nation's capital. Some of our friends had gone to DC the weekend before for a different competition and had taken pictures of themselves at various well-known locations. Corey took the better part of a day and cleared her schedule to scrapbook these pictures on loose pages to make a picture scavenger-challenge for us (put the word "scavenger" into the name of any activity and you'll instantly have 100% of all Mormons within earshot completely on board). We rushed around to the locations throughout the day, setting up the shots perfectly, posing in all the right places and in all the right positions until it was time to jet back to the airport. At the airport, Alex caused what had to be the biggest overreaction I've seen since the weather people told us it was going to be "snow-mageddon" last November in Utah and the entire population of the state boarded up their windows, hid in their bomb-shelters and gnawed through 6-months of their 1-year food supply, only to not even see so much as a cloud blow in. Alex did the unthinkable at the airport: she forgot to take a small plastic cup of mandarin oranges out of her carry-on. Can you even imagine what could have happened had they not noticed those oranges? Unthinkable. If you're Catholic, you probably just crossed yourself. If you're Mormon, you probably just said "Oh my heck." Anyway, after running the oranges through some test, TSA was absolutely convinced they were laced with explosives, apparently enough to take down an entire plane. So in response, one TSA agent began the first of several shockingly intrusive frisks while the other five of us stood on the other side of the glass and stared, noticing when Alex's eyes opened a bit wider every time Ms. TSA would discover a new area of Alex's body that Alex didn't know existed. After each frisk, they tested the oranges again which of course still tested positive for explosives, which would subsequently lead to yet another frisk. Our conversation on the other side of the glass turned from, "how could oranges possibly cause all of this" to "is anyone else a little nervous to travel with Alex?" Eventually she passed (whatever that means) and we walked to our gate, some of us feeling a bit guilty that we were still wondering whether Alex was actually a terrorist, the others upset that they didn't get a frisk because it looked a lot like a full body massage (except more intrusive).
It was good to make it home but sad to bid farewell to my friends with whom I will not get to spend every waking second ever again. This, of course, was just one more farewell in the middle of a string of farewells that will climax in April. And it's all too bad. It's too bad that I don't quite know how to savor strange experiences in a way that stops them from feeling like they are slowly slipping away. It's too bad that I can't make all of this last another 100 years. It's too bad that in a few months, we'll all be going our separate ways and it's too bad that all our separate ways can't include one another. It's too bad that this has all been so good because if it had been just another phase of life, it would be so much easier to anticipate the end of something mediocre and the start of something new. But this hasn't been just another phase of life. It's been something that has meant so much more to all of us who have found out how it feels to stand together and supported when the world rears its ugly head. It's been something that we'll all look back on with excessive amounts of anxiety and fondness, both of which blend together and ferment into a potent nostalgia, growing stronger as time makes us forget the pain of late nights and disappointment and thrusts the friendships and the power of trauma-forced bonds into the forefront of our memories.
But until then, thank you my travel group friends for helping my life Just Get Stranger~
Wednesday:
We left on Wednesday afternoon after raiding the CSO of all it's candy and cake, even swiping a chocolate box full of an assortment of chocolates we later found to be as confusing to decipher as figuring out why people watch Glee. I got flack for changing my seats on the plane so I would not sit by anyone (friend or stranger) because I had every intention of getting my first wink of sleep in 12 years on every leg of our trek. About half-way to DC, Alex found me on the plane and offered me some chocolate out of our gifted chocolate box. 3/4 of them had been gnawed on and placed back in the box (courtesy of Mary Beth and Joseph who "just wanted to see what kind they were"). Every single chocolate looked exactly the same, so I couldn't blame my friends and their rodent-like-nibbling-habits for not being able to effectively use the chocolate key card in the box to find out which one was apricot and which one was dung. I then nibbled on the remaining 1/4 only to remember that I don't really like chocolate that much.
We arrived in DC and immediately put Jordan in charge (because he is the most responsible human-being any of us has ever met. I bet he has food storage and a 401k (whatever that is!)). Jordan got our rental van and drove us to our hotel. Upon arriving, we discovered something about the van: we think it may have been the main character in that horror movie from the '80s where machines take over the world (Maximum Overdrive?) because it did things without being prompted, always at the inconvenience of every one of us. For example: As Jordan and I exited the vehicle from the front to go check into the hotel, all the doors locked and the remaining four (grown-ups, mind you) suddenly found themselves trapped, and apparently convinced that they were in sealed airtight capsule with a limited oxygen supply. I watched as the mild frustration turned into all-out-panic in a matter of 60 seconds which resulted in four terrified people pounding on windows and screaming. I tried to explain over their yelling that there wasn't much I could do until they unlocked the doors but it never sank in (nobody thinks clearly mid-panic, and this was panic). Eventually the doors magically opened on their own and four exhausted adults fell out of the vehicle gasping for air; the van seemed to be laughing.
Thursday:
We trapped ourselves in our hotel rooms all day, frantically taking care of last minute preparations for our first round that would begin that night. Strangely Jeff and I had a room that was about 35 times bigger than anyone else's, so we became the trial ad headquarters.
The first round was fun and stressful, lasting almost five hours total. Jeff was my partner and Alex acted as one of our witnesses. We had to do direct examinations of three witnesses so the other two were provided by the competition and I got 15 minutes before the round to sit down with them and try to figure out what they were going to say. Combine that with the fact that we had no information on the defense witnesses and so had to wait literally until the moment it was time to cross-examine them to figure out what the heck we were going to say, and you understand that it was a pretty stressful competition.
Friday:
We drove out to the DC temple and some waterfall during the day (Jordan swore the official name of the place was "The Great Falls" which then prompted a series of jokes about what else they could have named the place. This, of course, went on for about 30 minutes longer than it should have . Options included: Mediocre Falls, Not As Great As Great Falls, and Not Worth a Trip By Itself But If You're In The Neighborhood Maybe Take A Minute And Stop By Falls). Then it was back to the hotel to tweak our preparations for the Friday night round which went more smoothly than the night before. After the round we had a small banquet to attend where they recognized and had us clap for every single person who has ever lived, before telling us who was moving on to quarter-finals from the 24 teams that originally started. Four prosecution teams and four defense teams moved on. Two of those prosecution teams were both of our BYU teams. We were excited and proud of how we had done. The competition gave us some new information that night (a photograph and a dr.'s note) and sent us home to prepare to compete early the next morning. It was a sort of late night, partly because we were frantically planning, but also because the several teams from other schools that were staying on our floor and didn't make it to quarter-finals got unbelievably drunk, pounded on the walls, and screamed obscenities at us and about our religion until about 3:00 AM. It didn't bother me too much because I don't sleep anyway so I appreciated the entertainment and found myself grateful once again that I go to a school with nice people that would never, ever, do any of that (at least I like to think so). I'm positive that the schools these people were representing are full of their own nice people as well; it's too bad the schools didn't draw from that pool of people to choose who to send to represent.
Saturday:
Quart-finals began bright and early. It was another 5 hour round with a slightly aggressive team (one who posted on its school website that they defeated us, despite that not at all being true--seriously people, the Internet is accessible to everyone and if you post lies about something that is verifiable, you're taking a risk). Mary Beth and Joseph moved on to semi-finals but Jeff and I were done (always a bitter-sweet thing--bitter because victory is sweet, and sweet because 5-hour rounds are bitter). Joseph and Mary Beth competed in semi-finals against a team from the same school as the team we went up against in quarter-finals--another one whose social skills and professionalism I was also not impressed with. Mary Beth and Joseph didn't move on to finals so we were finished with the competition on Saturday afternoon, and proud of how we had done.
Sunday:
Our flight didn't leave until the evening so we had most of the day to tour our nation's capital. Some of our friends had gone to DC the weekend before for a different competition and had taken pictures of themselves at various well-known locations. Corey took the better part of a day and cleared her schedule to scrapbook these pictures on loose pages to make a picture scavenger-challenge for us (put the word "scavenger" into the name of any activity and you'll instantly have 100% of all Mormons within earshot completely on board). We rushed around to the locations throughout the day, setting up the shots perfectly, posing in all the right places and in all the right positions until it was time to jet back to the airport. At the airport, Alex caused what had to be the biggest overreaction I've seen since the weather people told us it was going to be "snow-mageddon" last November in Utah and the entire population of the state boarded up their windows, hid in their bomb-shelters and gnawed through 6-months of their 1-year food supply, only to not even see so much as a cloud blow in. Alex did the unthinkable at the airport: she forgot to take a small plastic cup of mandarin oranges out of her carry-on. Can you even imagine what could have happened had they not noticed those oranges? Unthinkable. If you're Catholic, you probably just crossed yourself. If you're Mormon, you probably just said "Oh my heck." Anyway, after running the oranges through some test, TSA was absolutely convinced they were laced with explosives, apparently enough to take down an entire plane. So in response, one TSA agent began the first of several shockingly intrusive frisks while the other five of us stood on the other side of the glass and stared, noticing when Alex's eyes opened a bit wider every time Ms. TSA would discover a new area of Alex's body that Alex didn't know existed. After each frisk, they tested the oranges again which of course still tested positive for explosives, which would subsequently lead to yet another frisk. Our conversation on the other side of the glass turned from, "how could oranges possibly cause all of this" to "is anyone else a little nervous to travel with Alex?" Eventually she passed (whatever that means) and we walked to our gate, some of us feeling a bit guilty that we were still wondering whether Alex was actually a terrorist, the others upset that they didn't get a frisk because it looked a lot like a full body massage (except more intrusive).
It was good to make it home but sad to bid farewell to my friends with whom I will not get to spend every waking second ever again. This, of course, was just one more farewell in the middle of a string of farewells that will climax in April. And it's all too bad. It's too bad that I don't quite know how to savor strange experiences in a way that stops them from feeling like they are slowly slipping away. It's too bad that I can't make all of this last another 100 years. It's too bad that in a few months, we'll all be going our separate ways and it's too bad that all our separate ways can't include one another. It's too bad that this has all been so good because if it had been just another phase of life, it would be so much easier to anticipate the end of something mediocre and the start of something new. But this hasn't been just another phase of life. It's been something that has meant so much more to all of us who have found out how it feels to stand together and supported when the world rears its ugly head. It's been something that we'll all look back on with excessive amounts of anxiety and fondness, both of which blend together and ferment into a potent nostalgia, growing stronger as time makes us forget the pain of late nights and disappointment and thrusts the friendships and the power of trauma-forced bonds into the forefront of our memories.
But until then, thank you my travel group friends for helping my life Just Get Stranger~
 |
| Elsa on the Left from the week before (click on the picture so you can see it better). Somehow we got the remake shot on the first try, even capturing the same tire marks in the grass. Pandemonium resulted when we discovered that the shot had turned out. |
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| Supreme Court. Zooming was a little off. |
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| Alex on the right with me as "spectator." That's Corey in the left picture. |
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| Left to Right: Joseph, Mary Beth, Jordan, Alex, Me, Jeff |
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| Jeff, Alex, and me at the courthouse |
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| Lincoln Memorial: Left to right: Me, Jeff, Mary Beth, Alex, Jordan, Joseph |
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| Jordan and I at the Supreme Court |
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Priorities
I probably shouldn't be blogging.
I should probably be reading the 12,000 pages we have covered so far for my Fourteenth Amendment class. Or at least attempting to understand what the heck some of the words on the pages of the thick book mean. Maybe if I was doing that, I would be more prepared to sit in on yet another impossible-to-understand conversation on Monday with 50 of my closest friends and a professor who I'm pretty sure dislikes me, although I can't figure out why.
I should probably be working on my never-ending contracts paper that I started exactly one year ago with the intention of publishing with my professor but which has changed so much as it has basically switched topics every 12 minutes for the last 365 days. Maybe if I was working on that paper, I would finally get something published before I head off into the real world in just a few short months.
I should probably be working on the case that Jeff and I have to present in DC ten days from now. Or at least I should be reading through the materials so I can get an idea of what the heck we're going to be doing in some courtroom with incredibly well-prepared teams from all over the country. Maybe if I was doing that, I would actually start to feel confident about representing the school instead of how I'm feeling right now--overwhelmed.
I should probably be working on my moot court argument that I have to deliver in New York just two weeks after I return from DC in the national competition. Maybe if I was doing that, I wouldn't feel so guilty after talking up how much effort I was going to put into the competition for over year.
I should probably be working on my bar application; frantically trying to track down the address to every place I've ever lived or seen or thought about; digging through every single record of everything I've done and everything anyone I've ever know has ever done and meticulously documenting it on the 15 billion page bar application. Maybe if I was doing that, I would be less stressed about the looming March 1st bar application deadline which seems to require everything short of offering up my second-born in some cultish blood sacrifice (they do require the first-born), but instead I watch the ticking-clock and wonder when I'm going to have time to care about any of it in the next 30 days.
I should probably be working on my journal assignments, pouring over pages and pages of tedious editing. Maybe if I was doing that I would actually get a journal assignment done before midnight of the day it is due.
I should probably be reading for all of my Monday classes.
I should probably be answering overdue emails.
I should probably be working on a research assignment for work that I need to have done early Tuesday morning.
I should probably be out attempting to have a social life so my friends and family will stop feeling the need to pray for me.
I should probably be running because once again I've committed to a marathon just a few months from now without thinking about when I might train for it.
I should probably be trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life, since graduation is approaching and clerkships don't last forever.
I should probably be cooking something for the event I'm about to head to as I promised a couple of weeks ago to cook something for the event I'm about to head to.
I should probably be sleeping, as there has been far too little of that in the last three years.
I should probably be figuring out what I should probably be doing the most right now.
But instead I'm blogging. Oh well. None of this has killed me yet.
~It Just Gets Stranger
I should probably be reading the 12,000 pages we have covered so far for my Fourteenth Amendment class. Or at least attempting to understand what the heck some of the words on the pages of the thick book mean. Maybe if I was doing that, I would be more prepared to sit in on yet another impossible-to-understand conversation on Monday with 50 of my closest friends and a professor who I'm pretty sure dislikes me, although I can't figure out why.
I should probably be working on my never-ending contracts paper that I started exactly one year ago with the intention of publishing with my professor but which has changed so much as it has basically switched topics every 12 minutes for the last 365 days. Maybe if I was working on that paper, I would finally get something published before I head off into the real world in just a few short months.
I should probably be working on the case that Jeff and I have to present in DC ten days from now. Or at least I should be reading through the materials so I can get an idea of what the heck we're going to be doing in some courtroom with incredibly well-prepared teams from all over the country. Maybe if I was doing that, I would actually start to feel confident about representing the school instead of how I'm feeling right now--overwhelmed.
I should probably be working on my moot court argument that I have to deliver in New York just two weeks after I return from DC in the national competition. Maybe if I was doing that, I wouldn't feel so guilty after talking up how much effort I was going to put into the competition for over year.
I should probably be working on my bar application; frantically trying to track down the address to every place I've ever lived or seen or thought about; digging through every single record of everything I've done and everything anyone I've ever know has ever done and meticulously documenting it on the 15 billion page bar application. Maybe if I was doing that, I would be less stressed about the looming March 1st bar application deadline which seems to require everything short of offering up my second-born in some cultish blood sacrifice (they do require the first-born), but instead I watch the ticking-clock and wonder when I'm going to have time to care about any of it in the next 30 days.
I should probably be working on my journal assignments, pouring over pages and pages of tedious editing. Maybe if I was doing that I would actually get a journal assignment done before midnight of the day it is due.
I should probably be reading for all of my Monday classes.
I should probably be answering overdue emails.
I should probably be working on a research assignment for work that I need to have done early Tuesday morning.
I should probably be out attempting to have a social life so my friends and family will stop feeling the need to pray for me.
I should probably be running because once again I've committed to a marathon just a few months from now without thinking about when I might train for it.
I should probably be trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life, since graduation is approaching and clerkships don't last forever.
I should probably be cooking something for the event I'm about to head to as I promised a couple of weeks ago to cook something for the event I'm about to head to.
I should probably be sleeping, as there has been far too little of that in the last three years.
I should probably be figuring out what I should probably be doing the most right now.
But instead I'm blogging. Oh well. None of this has killed me yet.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Monday, January 17, 2011
Public Transportation
Last September I had a new little addition come into my life: the regular use of the state's public transportation. I live in Provo and go to school full-time while trying to continue my job part-time in Salt Lake City, which entails about an hour long commute. Not wanting to make that drive two times per week, I got a heavily discounted student bus pass and decided I was going to finally start using public transportation.
This would not be the first time that I had ridden public transportation, but just the first time that I had done so with any regularity in Utah. When I lived in Ukraine and Russia, I practically gave a kidney to public transportation services (not because they were dangerous, but because we were so close). And I had an absolute love/hate relationship with public transportation in those two countries. On more than one occasion in Ukraine I climbed aboard a bus/van/metro that was so crowded that I could literally lift my feet off the ground while standing, and not fall. My friends and I used to play our favorite Eastern European game, "how many people am I touching" whenever public transport was especially crowded. I think the highest count I ever had was 11. If you happen to have 11 people in the room with you right now, smash your bodies together and see if you can comfortably touch all of them at the same time (this way you'll truly understand just how impressive my record is). Add to the amount of bodies pressed firmly against every angle of my own, standing on my feet, touching my face, crawling between my legs, etc., the smells of 1500 people all mixed together, and you've got a pretty accurate picture of a typical ride on Eastern European public transportation. (Smells included: vodka, body odor, vodka, leather, poop, borsch, vodka, cigarettes, halitosis, vodka, and dirt).
So purchasing a public transportation pass in Utah produced some anxiety for me, as I was somewhat convinced that my experiences would be much the same as in Eastern Europe. Not necessarily disappointed but somewhat underwhelmed in my never ending quest for strange experiences, I quickly found that my public transportation experience in Utah is full of annoying, but mostly sans bizarre. This is mostly because I seem to take the LDS church-office-building bus to and from Salt Lake which is full of relatively well-mannered and nicely-dressed older people who are all cross-stitching inspirational quotes onto pillows, writing in their journals, and talking with one another quietly about how to get grass stains out of pants. Compare that to somewhat similar experiences I've had on the Moscow metro where instead of inspirational quotes onto pillows the needle transcribed obscenities onto skin, instead of journals the writing went onto the side of the car, and the grass-stain conversation was actually about blood, and this seems like a relatively calm commute.
So calm, in fact, that I seem to have stopped paying attention to what is going on, which has unfortunately led to two transportation mishaps recently:
On New Years Eve my friend Jason and I decided to ride trax downtown to meet up with some friends and have the time of our lives despite the 6 degree Fahrenheit weather. Knowing that the last trax cars stopped running just after 1:00 AM, we quickly boarded the train after celebrating midnight and coming up with one or two New Years resolutions that we have no intention of keeping. Apparently we thought that there was only one train, going one way, and that that way was the way we needed to go, because we didn't bother checking the giant bright sign on the side of the car, electronically indicating that it was headed for the University, the exact opposite way we needed to go. And unfortunately, although both Salt Lake Valley natives, we didn't notice that the train was headed for the hills (literally) and not for our homes until WAY later than we should have. After getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere (and you would think that "the middle of nowhere" doesn't exist in the city; but it does. And we found it) we waited and wandered in the freezing weather, knowing it was quite possible that we could die in the middle of our home town because of the cold. This was HIGHLY disappointing to me as I have always pictured my death to be incredibly dramatic (like getting stoned to death in South America while leading a mult-million member revolution, NOT freezing to death in the middle of America's safest city because I'm too incompetent at age 26 to figure out how to use the world's least complicated public transport system). Eventually Jason called his parents who picked us up in front of a sketchy all-night diner. It was middle school all over again. Except with fewer hormones.
Then Thursday happened. I fell asleep on the bus and woke up riding around the middle of the city. As is usually the case when one wakes up from a deep sleep, everything seemed like a much bigger deal to me than it might in the middle of the day. So, naturally, when I opened my eyes and hadn't yet processed where I was or what had happened, something instinctively told me that everything was wrong and I (very unfortunately) yelled out a somewhat long and incredibly loud "NOOOOO!!!!" I was, of course, in the very back of the crowded bus, and got to watch all 75 heads turn from the cross-stitching to look at me. I hit the bus stop button without even knowing whether I had reached my stop yet, willing to walk up to 500 miles if I had to, just to get off that bus as soon as possible. Unfortunately it took over five minutes for the driver to get to a bus stop. And by the time he did stop and I had to make my walk up past the curious passengers, I had realized that my stop was several ago (having missed it during my sleep). I was slightly late to work that day. And I'm now thinking of wearing a disguise to keep anyone from recognizing me tomorrow.
~It Just Gets Stranger
This would not be the first time that I had ridden public transportation, but just the first time that I had done so with any regularity in Utah. When I lived in Ukraine and Russia, I practically gave a kidney to public transportation services (not because they were dangerous, but because we were so close). And I had an absolute love/hate relationship with public transportation in those two countries. On more than one occasion in Ukraine I climbed aboard a bus/van/metro that was so crowded that I could literally lift my feet off the ground while standing, and not fall. My friends and I used to play our favorite Eastern European game, "how many people am I touching" whenever public transport was especially crowded. I think the highest count I ever had was 11. If you happen to have 11 people in the room with you right now, smash your bodies together and see if you can comfortably touch all of them at the same time (this way you'll truly understand just how impressive my record is). Add to the amount of bodies pressed firmly against every angle of my own, standing on my feet, touching my face, crawling between my legs, etc., the smells of 1500 people all mixed together, and you've got a pretty accurate picture of a typical ride on Eastern European public transportation. (Smells included: vodka, body odor, vodka, leather, poop, borsch, vodka, cigarettes, halitosis, vodka, and dirt).
So purchasing a public transportation pass in Utah produced some anxiety for me, as I was somewhat convinced that my experiences would be much the same as in Eastern Europe. Not necessarily disappointed but somewhat underwhelmed in my never ending quest for strange experiences, I quickly found that my public transportation experience in Utah is full of annoying, but mostly sans bizarre. This is mostly because I seem to take the LDS church-office-building bus to and from Salt Lake which is full of relatively well-mannered and nicely-dressed older people who are all cross-stitching inspirational quotes onto pillows, writing in their journals, and talking with one another quietly about how to get grass stains out of pants. Compare that to somewhat similar experiences I've had on the Moscow metro where instead of inspirational quotes onto pillows the needle transcribed obscenities onto skin, instead of journals the writing went onto the side of the car, and the grass-stain conversation was actually about blood, and this seems like a relatively calm commute.
So calm, in fact, that I seem to have stopped paying attention to what is going on, which has unfortunately led to two transportation mishaps recently:
On New Years Eve my friend Jason and I decided to ride trax downtown to meet up with some friends and have the time of our lives despite the 6 degree Fahrenheit weather. Knowing that the last trax cars stopped running just after 1:00 AM, we quickly boarded the train after celebrating midnight and coming up with one or two New Years resolutions that we have no intention of keeping. Apparently we thought that there was only one train, going one way, and that that way was the way we needed to go, because we didn't bother checking the giant bright sign on the side of the car, electronically indicating that it was headed for the University, the exact opposite way we needed to go. And unfortunately, although both Salt Lake Valley natives, we didn't notice that the train was headed for the hills (literally) and not for our homes until WAY later than we should have. After getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere (and you would think that "the middle of nowhere" doesn't exist in the city; but it does. And we found it) we waited and wandered in the freezing weather, knowing it was quite possible that we could die in the middle of our home town because of the cold. This was HIGHLY disappointing to me as I have always pictured my death to be incredibly dramatic (like getting stoned to death in South America while leading a mult-million member revolution, NOT freezing to death in the middle of America's safest city because I'm too incompetent at age 26 to figure out how to use the world's least complicated public transport system). Eventually Jason called his parents who picked us up in front of a sketchy all-night diner. It was middle school all over again. Except with fewer hormones.
Then Thursday happened. I fell asleep on the bus and woke up riding around the middle of the city. As is usually the case when one wakes up from a deep sleep, everything seemed like a much bigger deal to me than it might in the middle of the day. So, naturally, when I opened my eyes and hadn't yet processed where I was or what had happened, something instinctively told me that everything was wrong and I (very unfortunately) yelled out a somewhat long and incredibly loud "NOOOOO!!!!" I was, of course, in the very back of the crowded bus, and got to watch all 75 heads turn from the cross-stitching to look at me. I hit the bus stop button without even knowing whether I had reached my stop yet, willing to walk up to 500 miles if I had to, just to get off that bus as soon as possible. Unfortunately it took over five minutes for the driver to get to a bus stop. And by the time he did stop and I had to make my walk up past the curious passengers, I had realized that my stop was several ago (having missed it during my sleep). I was slightly late to work that day. And I'm now thinking of wearing a disguise to keep anyone from recognizing me tomorrow.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Why I'm Not A:
Doctor:
When I was in Mr. Landeen's seventh grade science class, we started talking about diseases (because that's what you do in seventh grade science class). I sat on the front row next to my friend Aaron Ludwig who had broken his leg and got to use crutches, so naturally I spent the whole of 1997 jumping from the top of stairs unnecessarily to try to fracture any bone that could also allow me to use crutches and garner at least as much attention as he had been receiving. Fortunately, I was never quite brave enough to fully commit to said venture and so never ended up with so much as a bruise. Some things never change. Anyway, during Mr. Landeen's lecture on the common cold, I found myself suddenly extremely light-headed. After a minute or two, Aaron Ludwig raised his hand and said, "I think Eli is about to hurl." I did not hurl, but rather passed out cold onto the tile floor. So there's that. Ever since I've avoided any detailed conversation concerning any physical ailment, whatsoever. Also I'm generally terrified of the human body. And catheters.
Police Officer:
When I was eight my dad took me fishing. I saw the small buoys bouncing up and down on the water and asked him what they were. Having learned a few parenting tricks from my mother over the years, he found the most disturbing explanation he could imagine, conveyed that explanation to me with a straight face, and then turned it into a lesson: "obviously, that's where the police put children when they are misbehaving, and the more misbehaving children there are, the more crowded those become." (In Bob and Cathie's defense, I was apparently the spawn of Satan until at least age 12. And apparently their somewhat morbid practices worked to some degree as I'm now a relatively well-behaved adult, although one with many irrational fears). Rather than become concerned that I might be stuffed in there with the undoubtedly hundreds of suffocating children (and yes, these buoys were about the size of a basketball; I believed in many impossible things at age eight, including one creature my older sisters invented called "The First Eye" which was a giant eyeball with 1,000 toes all the way around the perimeter. It lived in every cave on Earth and terrified children. I still get the chills when I drive through southern Utah and see dark holes in the red rock), I thought to myself how horrible it must be for the police officers to have to swim out to the middle of the lake to stuff children into the bouncing buoys. This was a terrifying thought mostly because I was sure that lake was full of giant vengeful fish with razor sharp teeth (who were apparently smart enough not to fall for our bait as I'm sure we caught nothing that day). I think somewhere in the back of my mind I firmly resolved that I would never have a job that required me to do anything like that. And by the time I was 23 and realized that that story was probably not true, I was already unpersuaded-ly comfortable that I would make a terrible police officer.
Veterinarian:
I hate animals.
Hairdresser:
At age six I cut Micalyne's hair. She was four. I did an amazing job. I took out half of her bangs and cut out a couple of chunks from the back that I didn't think needed to be there. I thought it made her look "real" and approachable. Cathie, on the other hand, did not feel the same way at all. Fortunately for six-year-old Eli, the whole thing got blamed on Libby from down the street, which Micalyne verified was the true perpetrator of the massacred hair, because evidently Bob and Cathie hadn't yet figured out that child-Micalyne just answered "yes" to every question asked of her, and they just happened to ask first whether Libby had cut her hair. It is also possible that child-Micalyne just had a terrible memory (this came in handy once again two years later when I scratched her misspelled name into the bumper of Bob's car, to which she admitted guilt (I intentionally misspelled it to make it look more authentic. She was only six years old after all)). In any event, I have now gone two full decades without fessing up to the hair-cutting incident. So there it is mom and dad: it was me. I hope my punishment didn't accrue interest.
~It Just Gets Stranger
When I was in Mr. Landeen's seventh grade science class, we started talking about diseases (because that's what you do in seventh grade science class). I sat on the front row next to my friend Aaron Ludwig who had broken his leg and got to use crutches, so naturally I spent the whole of 1997 jumping from the top of stairs unnecessarily to try to fracture any bone that could also allow me to use crutches and garner at least as much attention as he had been receiving. Fortunately, I was never quite brave enough to fully commit to said venture and so never ended up with so much as a bruise. Some things never change. Anyway, during Mr. Landeen's lecture on the common cold, I found myself suddenly extremely light-headed. After a minute or two, Aaron Ludwig raised his hand and said, "I think Eli is about to hurl." I did not hurl, but rather passed out cold onto the tile floor. So there's that. Ever since I've avoided any detailed conversation concerning any physical ailment, whatsoever. Also I'm generally terrified of the human body. And catheters.
Police Officer:
When I was eight my dad took me fishing. I saw the small buoys bouncing up and down on the water and asked him what they were. Having learned a few parenting tricks from my mother over the years, he found the most disturbing explanation he could imagine, conveyed that explanation to me with a straight face, and then turned it into a lesson: "obviously, that's where the police put children when they are misbehaving, and the more misbehaving children there are, the more crowded those become." (In Bob and Cathie's defense, I was apparently the spawn of Satan until at least age 12. And apparently their somewhat morbid practices worked to some degree as I'm now a relatively well-behaved adult, although one with many irrational fears). Rather than become concerned that I might be stuffed in there with the undoubtedly hundreds of suffocating children (and yes, these buoys were about the size of a basketball; I believed in many impossible things at age eight, including one creature my older sisters invented called "The First Eye" which was a giant eyeball with 1,000 toes all the way around the perimeter. It lived in every cave on Earth and terrified children. I still get the chills when I drive through southern Utah and see dark holes in the red rock), I thought to myself how horrible it must be for the police officers to have to swim out to the middle of the lake to stuff children into the bouncing buoys. This was a terrifying thought mostly because I was sure that lake was full of giant vengeful fish with razor sharp teeth (who were apparently smart enough not to fall for our bait as I'm sure we caught nothing that day). I think somewhere in the back of my mind I firmly resolved that I would never have a job that required me to do anything like that. And by the time I was 23 and realized that that story was probably not true, I was already unpersuaded-ly comfortable that I would make a terrible police officer.
Veterinarian:
I hate animals.
Hairdresser:
At age six I cut Micalyne's hair. She was four. I did an amazing job. I took out half of her bangs and cut out a couple of chunks from the back that I didn't think needed to be there. I thought it made her look "real" and approachable. Cathie, on the other hand, did not feel the same way at all. Fortunately for six-year-old Eli, the whole thing got blamed on Libby from down the street, which Micalyne verified was the true perpetrator of the massacred hair, because evidently Bob and Cathie hadn't yet figured out that child-Micalyne just answered "yes" to every question asked of her, and they just happened to ask first whether Libby had cut her hair. It is also possible that child-Micalyne just had a terrible memory (this came in handy once again two years later when I scratched her misspelled name into the bumper of Bob's car, to which she admitted guilt (I intentionally misspelled it to make it look more authentic. She was only six years old after all)). In any event, I have now gone two full decades without fessing up to the hair-cutting incident. So there it is mom and dad: it was me. I hope my punishment didn't accrue interest.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Sunday, January 2, 2011
2010
Another year has come and gone. I can't believe it's time for the annual sum-up post already.
2010 was a good year. It wore me out like any good year should.
In 2010 I started eating salmon regularly. I read exactly four more pages of Crime and Punishment (well, three and a half). I ran a marathon. I got severely sunburned in a third world country. I attended a reggae concert on a beach and subsequently got stuck in a hurricane-like storm. I won a competition. I competed in Boston and DC. I attended a temple dedication in Ukraine. I got my first ever speeding ticket. I got in my first ever car accident. I started a new job and continued an old one. I staged a half-effective sit-in. I experienced a total computer crash two weeks before finals. I moved twice. I finished year two of law school. I crashed into Uncle Will’s garage with my car. I visited Mexico a couple of times. I went cave tubing in Belize. I stayed in a "hotel" that cost $4 a night for two people. I lost my bathing suit in the ocean. I met a famous Russian actor in the Moscow airport during my 20 hour layover. I made lots of borsch. I impromptu taught Sunday school half a dozen times. I ran the mud run and cleaned mud out of my ears for the next week. I started riding the bus. I landed a clerkship. I finally broke down and got a gym membership. I almost learned how to swim. I blogged and wondered how many people were actually reading. I successfully went on a four month shopping fast. I had Thanksgiving in Brawley. I recovered from the hand surgery. I purchased two old icons from a woman sitting on a stool in L'viv. I rode on two sleeper trains in eastern Europe. I visited New York City for the first time. A cat jumped on my lap on a red-eye flight. I helped work on a 400 page brief. I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s and thought it was sad. I ate at “Shigella’s” in San Felipe. I passed the MPRE. I took third in a pretty un-competitive Halloween 5k wearing very little clothing despite the freezing temperatures. I fought several battles at school and lost many of them. I taught contracts to 75 1Ls for a few days. I started sleeping without taking sleeping pills. I unexpectedly reconnected with long lost friends who I thought had disappeared forever. I gained a new niece. I found heaven on Earth on San Pedro Island ("Paris . . . dice".). I found Hell on Earth in Belize City. I went to midnight mass. Of course, I visited Salvation Mountain, again. I was the man of honor at Kimbally’s wedding. I went ice-blocking and then wondered why. I went body surfing and then wondered why. I went through several more terrible Blackberry Pearls. I danced for four straight hours at a Halloween party. I helped advocate for points I didn't fully believe just to make sure all sides were considered. I fell even more in love with my friends and family. I drove for two days looking for the Grand Canyon before finding it. I enjoyed life.
It’s amazing to me that I’m already reflecting on 2010. 2010 was my best year. It was different than any year I've had, full of strange events that have shaped me into a person that I appreciate more in my never-ending quest for infinite strange experiences to fill my repertoire of stories. I talk about a lot of strange moments on this blog, always in the most positive light possible, because, really, the strange experiences are what we live for. They represent the moments in our lives where we dared to feel something unique, learn something new, and pick up a new story along the way. So while we appreciate the common day-to-day experiences that keep us grounded, we savor the strange ones that keep us interesting.
Farewell 2010. Here's to a great 2011; may it just get stranger for us all~
2010 was a good year. It wore me out like any good year should.
In 2010 I started eating salmon regularly. I read exactly four more pages of Crime and Punishment (well, three and a half). I ran a marathon. I got severely sunburned in a third world country. I attended a reggae concert on a beach and subsequently got stuck in a hurricane-like storm. I won a competition. I competed in Boston and DC. I attended a temple dedication in Ukraine. I got my first ever speeding ticket. I got in my first ever car accident. I started a new job and continued an old one. I staged a half-effective sit-in. I experienced a total computer crash two weeks before finals. I moved twice. I finished year two of law school. I crashed into Uncle Will’s garage with my car. I visited Mexico a couple of times. I went cave tubing in Belize. I stayed in a "hotel" that cost $4 a night for two people. I lost my bathing suit in the ocean. I met a famous Russian actor in the Moscow airport during my 20 hour layover. I made lots of borsch. I impromptu taught Sunday school half a dozen times. I ran the mud run and cleaned mud out of my ears for the next week. I started riding the bus. I landed a clerkship. I finally broke down and got a gym membership. I almost learned how to swim. I blogged and wondered how many people were actually reading. I successfully went on a four month shopping fast. I had Thanksgiving in Brawley. I recovered from the hand surgery. I purchased two old icons from a woman sitting on a stool in L'viv. I rode on two sleeper trains in eastern Europe. I visited New York City for the first time. A cat jumped on my lap on a red-eye flight. I helped work on a 400 page brief. I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s and thought it was sad. I ate at “Shigella’s” in San Felipe. I passed the MPRE. I took third in a pretty un-competitive Halloween 5k wearing very little clothing despite the freezing temperatures. I fought several battles at school and lost many of them. I taught contracts to 75 1Ls for a few days. I started sleeping without taking sleeping pills. I unexpectedly reconnected with long lost friends who I thought had disappeared forever. I gained a new niece. I found heaven on Earth on San Pedro Island ("Paris . . . dice".). I found Hell on Earth in Belize City. I went to midnight mass. Of course, I visited Salvation Mountain, again. I was the man of honor at Kimbally’s wedding. I went ice-blocking and then wondered why. I went body surfing and then wondered why. I went through several more terrible Blackberry Pearls. I danced for four straight hours at a Halloween party. I helped advocate for points I didn't fully believe just to make sure all sides were considered. I fell even more in love with my friends and family. I drove for two days looking for the Grand Canyon before finding it. I enjoyed life.
It’s amazing to me that I’m already reflecting on 2010. 2010 was my best year. It was different than any year I've had, full of strange events that have shaped me into a person that I appreciate more in my never-ending quest for infinite strange experiences to fill my repertoire of stories. I talk about a lot of strange moments on this blog, always in the most positive light possible, because, really, the strange experiences are what we live for. They represent the moments in our lives where we dared to feel something unique, learn something new, and pick up a new story along the way. So while we appreciate the common day-to-day experiences that keep us grounded, we savor the strange ones that keep us interesting.
Farewell 2010. Here's to a great 2011; may it just get stranger for us all~
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