ice ice baby

It went from being really really warm yesterday to really really cold, wet and icy today. No snow yet, but lots and lots of ice.

The view from my balcony. That's ice on to of the cover of the swimming pool.

Cars belonging to people who are smart enough to stay inside and not go anywhere.

Classes after 4pm were cancelled today. Too bad I was already sitting in class when I got that email. And the law school may cancel class tomorrow, which won't make a difference to me because I just finished my last class today.

If this was Wellesley, they'd never cancel classes just because of a little ice. I remember when I had to trek through three feet of snow from one end of the campus to the other, carefully scale icy stairs and climb uphill against the freezing wind to get to my classes.

Midwestern wimps! (Please don't shoot me!)

=)

let it snow let it snow let it snow

Just checked weather.com and it predicts that by Thursday night, the temperature will be 22 degrees with a chance of snow or really really cold rain.

I'm a bit excited at seeing fresh snow fall again, but am sooooooo not looking forward to this bitter coldness.

Brr. Gotta go dig out the down jacket.

chickens

First, it was the question of "Is a burrito a sandwich?"

And now, it's the question of "What is a chicken?"

Who knew such simple things could result in thousands of dollars in legal fees trying to find a legal answer?

the week in food

Saturday: Szchuan Hot Pot; Korean Tofu

Sunday: Chinese Dim Sum; McDonalds (hey, it was a break stop on the drive back to Boston)

Monday: Korean Barbeque

Tuesday: Mom's special tomato seafood gumbo

Wednesday: My favorite meal of all time -- make your own spring rolls!

Thursday: Click here for a description.

Friday: Sushi and fried ice-cream

Saturday: airplane pretzels and chocolate chip cookies.

Note: Any airline that serves warm chocolate cookies has my patronage for life!

Black Friday Madness

The Goal:
--Get to Circuit City at 5 a.m., go in and buy the $2.99 1GB Sandisk Memory Card and then get out by 5:30 a.m. to browse the Black Friday sales at the mall.
--Be done with shopping by 9:00 a.m. in order to return the car to the parents so they can go to work. Then nap until noon.

The Reality:
--Get to Circuit City at 5 a.m.
--Discover a line of people that goes all the way around the Circuit City building. Rationalize that the line will move quickly once the doors are open.
--Continue standing in line for an hour with the cold wind blowing without mercy to freeze the fingers, the ears and eventually the body.
--Comtemplate whether or not the $2.99 1GB memory card is really worth the waiting in the coldness and that a comfy futon with a blanket would be much better at the moment.
--Coldly walk through the doors once the security finally let my part of the line enter.
--Spend five minutes looking for the memory card, and since I was still cold, spend another thirty minutes trying to warm up by looking for a memory card for my dad's camera and browsed through the collection of DVDs on sale for $2.99.
--Spend 45 minutes waiting in line to pay for the four items that I bought.
--Drove over to the mall to quickly browse the sales for sweaters that Mom wanted.
--Made purchases and drove back home at 7:45 a.m.
--Entered the parents bedroom and continued to make a ruckus by jumping up and down on the bed yelling "wake up! it's cold! too many people! I'm awake so you should be too!" because I really wanted to sleep on a bed instead of the futon so the parents needed to get out of bed.
--Be yelled at for causing a ruckus and the parents refused to get out of bed.
--Entered the brother's bedroom and caused the same ruckus hoping to get his bed to sleep in.
--No such luck.
--Admitted defeat and got cozy on the futon and tried to doze off while watching TV.
--As soon as I felt the slumber course through my body, the parents and the brother left for work. I now had two beds to choose from but yet I was too freaking tired to move.

The goal for next year: No more Black Friday shopping.

Thanksgiving Dinner, the Asian way

Last year, I had my first traditional American Thanksgiving Dinner, courtesy of The Boy's family.

And this year, I had the usual Asian Thanksgiving Dinner -- going out to an Asian restuarant and paying others to cook for you and clean up afterwards. This year, I had two meals on Thanksgiving. The first was brunch with a friend's family at a Japanese hot pot place and it was my first experience at shabu shabu (Japanese hot pot).

Yes, that's right, the food on the plate is raw. For those inexperienced eaters, this is similar to fondue but instead of dipping your food in cheese or chocolate, you're literally cooking your food in the soup. It's really yummy. Trust me. I ate a lot. And I don't eat anything that tastes yucky.

Then, for meal #2, it was the usual "duck and chicken in the window" meal, complete with a birthday cake for mom, because you know, it was her birthday.

DONE!

One outline down, three more to go!

But first, must eat for more brain power.

gameboy addiction

My brother gave me his Gameboy DS to try out. He gave it to me before he left for work this morning. He also gave me a bunch of games to try out, two of which are my favorites: Super Mario Brothers and Tetris.

I played Super Mario Brothers all day today. When my brother came home from work at 6pm, he found me sitting in the dark, in my PJs, with my eyes glued to the game boy.

Brother: Good lord, how long have you been playing with that thing?

Me: Death to you brother. Because of you, I haven't done any studying because of this thing.

Brother: Put it down.

Me: If you take it away from me, I will hurt you.

Brother: Put. The. Gameboy. Down.

Me: Get away from me. It's my gameboy. Pretty gameboy. Mario must finish level 6.

Brother: Crazy Gollum.

Me: OH NO. I JUST DIED! NOOOOO!

Brother: Okay, now put the gameboy down.

Me: I can't feel my fingers. You better take this thing away from me and hide it or else I will never get any homework done.

Brother: And you said I have an addiction to video games. I give this thing to you for a day and look at you. No discipline at all.

Me: Gimme that thing back. I'll start outlining tomorrow.

Brother: No hope for the ones that have fallen so far.

The Underground Purse Network

So, you all heard of knock-offs of designer purses right? Well, my friend was telling me about this underground purse network in NYC and I just didn't believe her until I experienced it myself. It was like I was trying to buy drugs from a dealer. This was an experience I just had to share, but I hope no one gets in trouble.

It started out with us walking down a street in NYC's Chinatown. There was a ton of people there and already I was getting claustrophobic (and we were still outside!). As we were walking along, looking at the wares, there would be people whispering "LV LV? Gucci Gucci? Coach? We have lots. Wanna look?" If one person peeks your interest, then you'd follow that person to the location of their stash of knock-off designer stash.

Most of the time, the "Gucci, Coach, LV? I have it" person will take you to the back of the store and let you into a hidden, locked door that leads to a tiny room of about 5' x 5' PACKED with purses. Then there's another person telling you how much each purse costs, with a walkie talkie to transmit the price to the cashier up front. And in this tiny room are about 20 people trying to look at purses. Claustrophobia at a high! And if you try to bargain on the price of the purse, they'll just grab the purse from you and kick you out.

And when you get kicked out of one place, you go back on the streets and look for the next person whispering "Gucci? LV? Coach? PRada? I got it" guy who will take you to another hidden room in the back of the store. However, one lady lead us across three blocks, through an alley way, down a basement, through some more alley ways and into a locked storage room. I was fearing that she would just robb us and take our money, but she had the loot of knock-offs and she also kicked us out for trying to bargain with her on the prices.

Then we hit the motherload of the vendors: an indoor mall where every store has a stash of purses. On the outside, the store windows are covered with "Accupuncture," "Taxes filed here," Alterations for men and women available" signs. But when you walk through the door, there is an abundance of purses to choose from. And once you leave one store, the owner of another will ask you, "Want more purses? Come through here!"

I am never ever going through that again. Too many people. Too little rooms. And it takes too much freaking energy just to get a cheap LV knock-off. I'll wait until I make my millions and just buy the real thing, thank you very much.

Conversation of the Day

A little background: As we were driving to Queens, my friends and I were discussing people we knew from high school when somehow the conversation turned towards toilet humor. We were joking about using the john (one of the friends is named John) and then the Vietnamese equivalent of using the john, which resulted in the following conversation between me and my girl friend:

MM: My co-worker was in the Army, and he said that whenever someone had to go to the toilet, they would announce "I have to go see my head."

Me: Why would you want to go see your supervisor if you have to go pee?

MM: I don't know, but that's what he told me.

Me, with the lightbulb turning on: Um, you said that they always say that to let someone know that they're going to the toilet?

MM: Yeah.

Me: Oh my gosh. You know what "head" is slang for?

MM: Um, no? Should I?

Me: "I need to go see my head" means that he has to go see his penis.

MM: WHAT? Why the F would my co-worker tell me that?

Me: Head = penis. Get it?

MM: WTF? Why would he tell me something perverted like that?

Me: Boys will be boys.



The weirdest thing about the conversation? That the other three guys in the car didn't make the connection.

Is a burrito a sandwich?

That is the question of the day. Instead of discussing the holding of cases involving leases and subleases, landlord, tenant and subtenant, our Property Professor decided to use our class time to discuss the how one can argue that a burrito is or is not a sandwich.

"How does this question apply to property law?" you ask?

Well, it all started with a burrito making restaurant wanting to rent space inside a shopping center. BUT a sandwich making place does not want the burrito makers to get a lease because they fear competition. Fun huh? Read the entire article here.

The gist of the article is that a Judge ruled that a burrito is not a sandwich because Webster's dictionary said so. And from that ruling, the people of Worcester, Massachusetts can look forward to having a choice of burritos or sandwiches for lunch.

In class, however, we went one step further and the professor provided other sources to find the definitions of certain terms. For instance, according to the USDA, there is a difference between an open-faced sandwich and a closed sandwich. And there is even a definition for a burrito (a Mexican style sandwich-like product), but strangely there is not a definition for bread.

And through the entire class, I kept wondering why both companies spent probably thousands of dollars litigating this issue. Now I wonder how many burritoes and sandwiches must be sold to recoup the dollars spent on litigation. There's a problem for you to do.

Okay, if that just bored you to death, you can play the "Sandwich or no Sandwich?" game. Enjoy!

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BF Quote of the Day: Law and Food? You're in heaven!

48 more hours...

...until I am on a plane en route to Boston!!!

I can't wait.

I don't want to go to classes tomorrow.

I really don't want to go to class on Friday.

I just want to hug my mommy and ask her to make my favorite dinner so I can eat like a pig and fall into a food coma in front of the TV.

Ha, eating like a pig and falling into a food coma. What else is new?

motivational speaker

*ring ring*

BF: Hello?

Me: Hi honey.

BF: What's going on?

Me: I have no motivation right now.

BF: Go to the gym.

Me: How'd you know I was talking about the gym?

BF: Because I know you. Go to the gym.

Me: But I don't want to. It's cold outside...

BF: Go.

Me: ...and I'm gaining momentum on my memo...

BF: Moo.

Me: ...and I just want to crawl under the blankets...

BF: Moo.

Me: Moo? I am not a cow!!

BF: I didn't say you were a cow. I just mooed. That should be your motivation.

Me: I'm not a cow!

BF: You're not a cow!

Me: But I should go to the gym, especially since I will not be doing any form of exercise whatsoever when I'm in Boston next week.

BF: Tough it out and go to the gym every day this week, then you can award yourself by eating to your heart's content next week.

Me: Oh yeah, I'll be eating lots in Boston. I've already got a menu for my mom to follow.

BF: Oh gosh, you're going to end up with an 8-month pregnant belly after all that eating.

Me: Hey! I may have a little jelly belly but it's not to the point where people think I'm pregnant!!

BF: Go change into your gym clothes because once you have your gym clothes on, you'll have to go to the gym because you've changed for nothing if you don't.

Me: ummm...

BF: And you can do a lazy workout, half hour on the elliptical. Doing a lazy workout is better than nothing at all.

Me: Alright. Fine. I'll go change.

BF: Moo.

Me: I'm going to moo you until the cows come home.

death to the Bluebook

I guess I should start forming a very close relationship with the Bluebook if I ever want to get the grade I would have gotten if not for the stupid citation mistakes. I will probably never make Law Review either, for I am a person who does not care whether the comma is italicized or not.

But really, does correct citation really matter in real life? Is opposing counsel going to tell the Judge that I forgot a period after Id? Is the Judge going to send me to the corner for not having an extra period at the end of a string quote? Is the partner of the firm going to dock my pay if he finds an extra space after the citation? He will?

Alright, if it's that important, I'll go make love to my Bluebook now.

I WON!! I FINALLY WON!!

I finally won a game of badminton!!

11 to 9, YEAH BABY!!!

Yes, I only won one game out of four, but still, I finally won a game. Let me savor the moment.

I WON!!!

I need to go ice my knees now.

spam on cell phones

Technology is getting more advanced these days, especially with cell phones. Nowadays, you can get a teeny tiny cell phone that plays music, connects to the internet, takes pictures, takes video images, and of course text messaging.

I appreciate the opportunity to use my cellphone as a camera, telephone and an mp3 player at the same time, but I do not appreciate the SPAM "text messages".

For instance:

"We are interested in buying your house. Come to our meeting tomorrow night for more information. Call 888-888-1234."

Hello! I don't even own a home! And that spam message just cost me $0.10 on my cell phone bill. Thanks mister.

BUT, what I don't understand is getting forwarded messages from people you KNOW. And these messages aren't personally specific to you, like "Hi, wanna go out to lunch today?" Oh no, these messages look something like this:

"FWD: A PHONE TOAST! *2 US* 4 THE MEN WHO HAVE US, THE LOSERS WHO HAD US, N THE LUCKY BASTARDS WHO WILL MARRY US! SEND THIS TO ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS YOU KNOW!"

And this is coming from someone I know! Although I don't think she realizes she keeps sending me these annoying and randem text messages. Why? Because I used to be old school in thinking that you have to send each person a separate text message and if you wanted to send the same message to another person, you'd have to type it all over again and enter in the other person's number. But, you don't have to do that anymore. If you want to send the same message to 100 of your friends, you can just enter in some combination of commands on your cell phone that is the equivalent of "SEND ALL" on an email program.

I can buy a piece of chocolate for ten cents, which is much more enjoyable than getting spam messages on any kind of communication tool.

writing a resume

What I learned from the Career Services' Panel on building and writing your resume:

"...and if you highlight your name, and then click on 'Format', then 'Font', then click on the 'Small Caps' button, it will change the way your name looks on your resume."



All I have to say is, if you don't know how to change the font in a word document, then you shouldn't be in law school at all.

counting the days

2.5 hours until Thursday turns into Friday, the special Friday where both classes are canceled and I can sleep in for a change! WHOOPIE!!

5 days until Election Day...GO OUT AND VOTE!

6 days until I get my second writing assignment returned with a grade...not sure if that's going to be a YAY or $*%&*&#^%&*$#.

9 days until Veterans Day.

14 days until the last class of Torts for the semester...WHEEE!!

15 days until I get the hell of out of Dodge to see The Parents and The Brother in Boston, and stuff my guts to the gills with Mom's home cooking. Plus, a whole week off for Thanksgiving break! DOUBLE YAY!!

21 days until Thanksgiving. GOBBLE GOBBLE!

23 days until I have to get back on a plane from Boston and return to "Dodge".

27 days until the last class for Contracts and Criminal Law...WHOO HOO!

28 days until the last class of Property...YIPEE!

32 days until the first final of the semester--Torts (YIKES)

34 days until the Criminal Law final exam (ACK)

39 days until the Property final exam (EEK)

41 days until the Contracts final (HELP), which is the last exam of the semester...YAY!!!

41 days until I get to see The Boy...YAY!!!

ohmygosh, time sure flies when you're having fun

lost in interpretation

A line from my Torts casebook:

"In this case the plaintiff had left his ass fettered in the road eating grass." Davies v. Mann, 10 M. & W. 546, 152 Eng. Rep. 588 (Exch. 1842)

My initial thoughts after reading that line: Why would the plaintiff tie his butt to the ground to eat grass? Couldn't he just sit and eat the grass? Why is he even eating grass on the side of the road? Were they that poor in England back then? I still don't understand why he felt the need to tie his butt to the ground....how do you tie your butt to the ground?

Upon reading the next sentence did I realize that "ass" meant "donkey" and not the plaintiff's butt, which totally makes so much more sense.

It's been a long day...