There have been some stunning sunsets in the past couple weeks.. I just wanted to share. I should really be asleep right now, because tomorrow I'm riding up with my co-clerk, Sameer, to the Bay Area to spend the weekend..

Okay, well, that's not strictly true. But I am flying out there tomorrow morning to attend my friend Alice's wedding. Alice was my neighbor in Hedrick Hall, 5 South, during my freshman year of college, so we go way back. I haven't really talked to her in three years (and the last time I saw her was also in Las Vegas), but she is a great friend and I'm glad she's found the man of her dreams. It will be great catching up with my college friends, all of whom are spread throughout the country..

So in my last post, I kind of lied. Tuesday, April 24th wasn't technically my last day of class, though it was my last day of traditional, doctrinal, Socratic law lectures (Criminal Procedure and International IP.) And it was sad to be done with those. (I will admit, I was shocked when visiting professor Chris Slobogin abruptly, and without fanfare, ended my last doctrinal lecture with a terse, "It's been great. Bye!" I would have hoped he would at least tell us how great of a class we were, or how he'll miss Stanford, but I am also convinced he prides himself on being gruff in an affable sort of way that is consistent with that not-so-grand exit.)

So anyway, it wasn't until my last 2-unit, non-graded, no-final Accounting class on Wednesday that the realization really kicked in. And that real very-last-class was not without incident.

Because I got very little sleep the night before due to the paper deadline, I was zoning out during Accounting. I thus figured I could leave at 5 pm instead of at 5:20, slip out, and take a nap before the Board of Visitors dinner. Instead, when Professor Rajan saw me leaving, he stopped the whole class and asked me to fill out an evaluation form. It was quite embarassing and he totally called me out. But what a way to go, I guess.

In other news, I just got back from two and a half days in America's Second City. I visited a couple of my friends at University of Chicago, saw a slew of tourist attractions, went on a number of tours, and checked out the nightlife as well -- Chicago has excellent comedy, jazz, and blues clubs. And so far, I'm not regretting the decision to go two days before my CrimPro final, which is on Tuesday. (I just have to cram, now.) More on all this later!

Last Friday, I took the day off and drove down to Santa Cruz just to hang out. After the thick marine layer burned through, which took until about 1 p.m., it was a sunny, breezy day. In the morning, I drove around the residential area taking pictures (until one of the neighbors came out and started staring at me.) I then had lunch in downtown (which is quite nice but maybe a little bit generic) and then headed down to the boardwalk on a cruiser bike that I rented for $8. I crossed the San Lorenzo river over some old railroad tracks and made my way east along the cliffs overlooking the beach, until I reached the lighthouse. Pretty sweet stuff.

I really like Santa Cruz -- it seems like such an idyllic, laid back place where life is simply conducted at a slower pace. The guy at the bike rental greeted me with a big smile, handed me the bike with no questions asked, and when I returned an hour and seven minutes later, only charged me the $8 for one hour instead of $16 for two. Hell, I wouldn't mind spending my summers there. Or retirement.

P.S. the "Welcome Alzheimer's" sign in the previous post is actually in Santa Cruz; it actually says "Welcome Alzheimer's Foundation." If that sign looks familiar.. well, then it's because you have a good memory. Yes, Stanford had its Law School Formal there two years ago. But I've never been during the day, until now.

Full picture set here.

Okay, so I'm finally ready to talk about our trip down to Santa Monica. The trip itself went fine, and was a lot of fun. I got to hang out in Santa Monica, a city where I have actually spent very little time in the past. And while I didn't actually visit home, I did meet up with my mom and dad at my grandma's house, and I had lunch with Janis. Finally, compared to Nor Cal, even drizzly weather in L.A. is warm and pleasant.

But of course, what me, Dave, Crystal, Joe and Sara had come down to L.A. for was the ATLA Mock Trial Regional competition. And that was a mixed bag. On one hand, my teammates put on the best performances of the whole season; their cases have never been so polished as they were at the three tournament rounds we participated in. On the other hand, we failed to advance to the semifinals round on Saturday afternoon. We got beat by a very good Cal Western team in the second round (have you heard of Cal Western Law School? Neither have I, but they went on to win the whole tournament), and in a third round bummer, lost all three ballots to a Southwestern team that was mediocre at best (yet somehow reached the semis!)

( LJ Cut: Learn why I now hate all Plaintiffs' Lawyers )

I leave you with some final pictures, and a Flickr set:


( A few more pictures )

I had a great time in DC. Washington is a wonderful "walking city" – while not on the compact scale of a Manhattan or a Hong Kong, you can walk for miles and miles and never run out of things to see, places to explore or things to take pictures of. (There are plenty of those which I will post once I sort them out.) I went to the Natural History museum, the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, the Jefferson, Lincoln, Vietnam, and World War II memorials, the Holocaust museum... the only disappointment was the crummy Commerce Department National Aquarium.

Even the hotel we stayed in was historic -- the swanky Mayflower hotel, famously labeled by LBJ as "Washington's second best address." The Democrats had their 2000 election night "victory" party there (my dad was there.) It was so fancy, some maid comes in every evening to fluff and arrange your pillows before bedtime.

The weather was great. One day it was an LA-like 60 degrees, and the next it was "only" in the low 50's. The third day it was foggy and wet, but still, it's hard to believe that the rest of the year this city is either freezing or swelteringly humid.

And oh yea: as a law student, the uncontested highlight of my trip was sitting in on ( the U.S. Supreme Court in session. )

Now that I'm back home and unpacked, it's time to re-pack for Stanford. Huzzah..

Sorry for not posting much recently, but I am in the thick of studying for finals. I think I really know what I'm doing now, and I think I can pull this off. I've had since Tuesday morning off and I have been cramming for Copyright, Trusts & Estates, and Patents, in that order, ever since. I also have a paper due 4 days after finals are over.

But all this studying has been getting me down. Day, in, day out, sitting on my butt at my desk in my little cubicle of a bedroom, reviewing notes and outlines was driving me nuts. So for a change, I decided to go up to San Francisco and study at a Borders.

I'm proud of myself because I did it without a car -- I took a bright and early 7:37 am Marguerite shuttle from my apartment to the Cal Train station at Downtown Palo Alto. I then caught the 8:03 am Baby Bullet to San Francisco and was out on King and 4th Street in SoMa by 8:45 am. Amazing.

Anyway, I spent 9 1/2 hours in San Francisco today. 5 1/2 were spent studying, spread out over the morning and afternoon, and I got a whole lot done. In the rest of that time, I walked about 4 miles, went CD shopping at my favorite Virgin Megastore off Market and 4th, and made friends with a 3L who goes to Golden Gate Law School.

Beautiful weather, too. It was warm and mild (65 degrees) with clear skies today in SF, yet noticeably chillier in Palo Alto. I'm confused.

But enough yakking, here are my pictures from today:

I visited SBC Park Stadium, home of free wireless access (yay), Willie Mays, and some baseball team that nobody cares about.


This is a shot taken from the back of the Metreon mall. I thought it was a cool contrast – brick and steel.


This is what I did in the afternoon -- study Patents in the Borders' adjacent to Union Square. I actually studied at two Borders locations today -- spent the morning at the one South of Market.


Christmas tree and shoppers at Union Square. You can't tell, but this is a fudged picture that is a composite of two different shots (hint – the shoppers don't belong.)


Macy's is all randomly lit up and pretty for Christmas.


San Francisco is so cool and there is so much to do. It makes me realize how much I've always wanted to live in the middle of a "walking city" . . .

But crap, I need to concentrate on finals. They start on Monday and I have four of them.

Here's a link to the photos I took during my 18 hours in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C. Very scenic -- I visited the Georgetown campus and the M Street commercial area, during the free hour before I had before I took a taxi back to the airport.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maveric2003/sets/1263759/

I have one more callback, and it's on Friday in Washington DC with Foley Lardner. They have a stellar IP Litigation and Life Sciences practice group that I just have to check out.

I've only been back for 3 days, and it's already really hectic. Part of it is because Mon-Wed is the most hectic part of my week. Late nights, early mornings, no free time. And now I am gonna fly off tomorrow after my Corporations midterm (which I haven't started studying for yet.)

Anyway, I imagine what I'll be seeing will look something like this:


(credit: kestan.com)

Unfortunately, there is no time to sightsee.

today was really HOT and I was busy almost the whole day, so I'm exhausted. I shipped off my Blueberry iMac (which I bought for $500 two years ago on eBay and just sold for $350 on eBay), developed a roll of film and enlarged some pictures off it at LACC, got an x-ray and talked to a shoulder specialist at Kaiser, and went to work and stayed there for four hours. Then after I got home i went shoe shopping. it's easier to get exhausted when it's so hot like this.
Anyhow, yea, I had fun visiting Harvard in Cambridge/Boston and Columbia & NYU in New York. They are all excellent schools and those cities seem like fun places to live, and it was temperate and even hot the whole time I was there. But, I have decided that Stanford Law is where I'll be enrolling next fall.
I need to touch up the stupid photo of a guy riding his motorcycle down Los Feliz that I am submitting tomorrow. It's a motion/panning shot that I used a tripod with a swivel head to take. I figured out that you have to keep swivelling the camera even after you snap the shutter, then the moving subject is in focus and the background is blurred. Anyway.. nighty yall.

Today I got labeled with a racial insult when i was standing on a street in Beverly Hills. I was at work and trying to save a space of street parking for one of Sarah's clients (okay, her masseuse) who was coming to visit our office, and this really rude Middle Eastern lady in a gigantic Landcruiser drove up and started shouting at me because she wanted the space. "You're not in China any more!" she screamed at me.
I always hear these incidents of racial slurs or whatever, but until you actually are on the receiving end of cultural insensitvity.. let's just say it stung and I didn't expect it to. Especially from someone who herself could be considered a "minority."
The masseuse lady had witnessed the incident and was very upset, as were the partners in my firm. As a consolation prize, I received twenty minutes in a massage chair, at no cost! (to me, at least.)
Anyhow, I'm leavin' early on my trip tomorrow to Boalt Hall and Stanford Law. I've been looking forward to this trip for a long time.

aww.. i've neglected my widdle Live Jouwnal.. Anyhow, I've been having a fun couple of weeks. I get to show up at the law firm at a leisurely 10 am 3-4 days a week, and since I'm paid very little, I can leave whenever I want. Every day I do something new. So far, I've bound together a tome on Trademark Law, updated the pamphlet on trademark law that Sarah wrote for artists without a legal education, and researched Texas labor codes. While some of the tasks I do are filing, I don't have to do stuff like answer phones, because they have a full time secretary to do that (and she is also very cool.)
I am also excited.. because this Friday through next Monday, I am going UP NORTH! I am touring Berkeley and Stanford's law schools. Yep.. I have gotten accepted by a whole bunch of law schools and now I have to decide where I am going to go. In two more weeks, I am going to visit Harvard, NYU and Colombia. The choice is really down to Harvard and Stanford, and really, I wish I could go to both :\
In other news, I had a physical therapy appointment today. My shoulder muscles don't want to move because they're protecting themselves from another dislocation.. or so I've been told repeatedly.