North Maple Rag

My most productive hours are from about 8pm to 3am (give or take an hour on either side). About a month ago, I used my unique circadian rhythms to justify sleeping late and I think they're also the reason for my late-night energy. Whatever the reason, my ability to concentrate is much greater after the sun goes down. Obviously, my night-owlishness becomes more pronounced when I don't have to follow any kind of daytime schedule (unfotunately, this weekend I'll need to adjust my sleep schedule a bit to accomodate Monday morning's property final). At my job, I noticed it during the times I was most overwhelmed with work. I can remember weeks where I regularly left my desk after midnight and it was during those late hours that I did some of my most efficient and highest quality work.

So yeah, I'm going to attribute all this to the circadian rhythms thing (mainly because I like using the word, "circadian"). In all reality, though, it's probably more likely that I'm just easily distracted and the quiet nighttime hours are more conducive to my ability to focus.

I've been studying for something like 14 hours today. I give myself one, maybe two more days of this before I crack. I can only keep up the "studious" illusion for short bursts of time. Already this evening, when a friend mentioned some shopping she needs to do, my first thought was, "oh yeah, I totally need to do some shopping, that's a legitimate break from finals." Keep in mind that I'm broke and I'm moving cross-country in two weeks; I have zero need to buy anything new. So, instead, I'm now thinking I might try to convince someone to take a movie break with me Friday night. 1.5 hours of dumb movie seems like a small sacrifice for sanity.

In other news, well, there isn't any other news. Finals kind of suck and I'm looking forward to summer. Same old story. I'll try to drum up something more interesting tomorrow.

St. Elmo's Fire is every bit as awesome as I remembered. Okay, okay, the movie's atrocious, but it's atrocious in a completely adorable and hilarious way. And, because of a very thoughtful former roommate, I now own it and can start every day with it!

Today was the last day of classes. My property professor endeared herself to my section forever by giving a lovely little speech at the end of class. My torts professor kind of did the opposite. Today's also my birthday. Several of my friends endeared themselves by making it very enjoyable.

So, I'm 25. I can rent a car. I can run for Congress. I can talk about my early-twenties in the past tense. I actually feel a little older, 25 has a certain weight to it that 24 and 23 didn't. SeaAPea had a lovely post last month about turning 25 that captures the quarter-century mark better than I can right now.

A year ago, for my birthday, Denny Crane and I left work early one Friday afternoon and drove to Richmond for a concert. The concert was fun and neither of us had plans for the weekend, so we decided impulsively to keep driving and go to a Bluegrass/Country music festival (Merlefest) in Wilkesboro, NC. Despite a mutual hatred for Walmart, we stopped at one (it was the only place open) in Richmond and stocked up for the weekend (licorice, crackers, that cheese that comes in a spray can, baby carrots, and extra t-shirts). We left Richmond a little before midnight and arrived in Wilkesboro around 4:00am. Smart girls that we are, we parked my car in K-Mart parking lot, reclined our seats, and slept. After a couple hours, we moved the car because shoppers were starting to give us funny looks.

Around 9:00, we stopped in Walmart (again, I know, I'm sorry) and asked the cashiers where we could get a good breakfast. We followed their directions to a diner that had, hands down, the world's best Southern breakfast buffet. Those people knew they're way around a deep fryer. High on carbohydrates and coffee, we went to the festival and the music was fantastic. We left Wilkesboro at dusk and drove through a hilly part of North Carolina. The little valleys between the hills were filled with low-lying clouds. That, combined with the evening light was a breathtaking sight.

This morning, as I've furtively tried to complete my Torts outline, I've been listening to a CD I bought at the festival and lamenting the fact that I can't roadtrip for my birthday (two years ago, I convinced Hans Brix to join me on a Chinatown bus trip to NYC). In general, law school hasn't allowed me much freedom to travel. I sort of doubt that situation's going to improve next year, so I'm planning to make the most of my summer.

I've already got a decent list of places that are must-sees while I'm in California, but I'm open to any and all suggestions. So, email or post your recommendations. I'll be living in Berkeley, but I'm not put off by driving a few hours to see, do, or eat something great.

At midnight last night, SeaAPea called to inform me that I can live at her apartment all summer. Then, after class this morning, I was greated by two emails informing me that Katherine Van Bora will be living with us for the last 5 or 6 weeks I'm in Berkeley. That fact that I get to live with two of my best friends from college this summer is mind-boggling. The three of us haven't lived within 1000 miles of each other since May of 2002 and in the past three years, we've only all been in the same place at the same time twice. To top it all off, the endeavor is going to be cheaper than I'd expected which means I can easily justify a trip back to SoDak for a wedding and a weekend in DC (thank you, Independence Air and your cheap, cheap flights).

I love it when my plans work out. Last summer, my cross-country road trip included almost a week in the Bay Area. I liked it more than I expected I to (certainly more than I like much of the East Coast) and I decided to include California in my summer job search. However, I kind of expected to end up in DC or Minneapolis by default. Instead, thanks to a couple of good interviews and a lot of luck, I'm actually working in the Bay Area, at a job I'm jazzed about, while living with two great friends. Needless to say, I'm a little overwhelmed with gratitude right now.

So, that's my most recent cheerful, good news. The less cheeful news is that in the month before I get to Berkeley, I have to finish two outlines, take three finals, pack up my apartment, finish a law review write-on thing, and drive to California from South Dakota. No problem, right?

After Property, I headed out across the park to run some errands. Today must've been some kind of community service day for the undergrads because students were out planting and painting and just generally making the park prettier. There was a jazzy band playing on the band platform and little kids were doing little kid dances around them. There were several intense chess games happening in the Southwest corner of the park and many dogs and children playing in their respective areas.

Most of the trees are starting to get leafy and green. Some them are also currently filled with pretty pink and white blossoms. The most adorable thing I saw was an elderly couple taking pictures of the blossoms. The husband had given his wife a flower to wear in her hair and she'd tucked it above her ear. The tottered through the park holding hands. Awwww.

I took the Myers-Briggs personality test in my 12th grade psychology class and was the only student in the class to have the same personality type as my teacher. It turned out that he was pretty proud to be an INTP and he spent a significant chunk of that class period talking about how rare and special we are (only 1% of the population is an Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiver). Well, for some reason, I thought of that class a few days ago, so I looked up my personality profile tonight. It was absolutely fascinating.

When I first took the test at 17, I don't think I had a good grasp on whether or not the INTP description was accurate. Now though, a few days from my 25th birthday, I recognize that the INTP description is, for the most part, eerily accurate. To be fair, I'm not quite the "thinker" the description makes me out to be and I truly enjoy teamwork and writing. Otherwise, the stuff about problem-solving and communication is spot on.

Anyway, most people have taken the Myers-Briggs, but if you haven't, you can do it here. And this, is just one of many places you can read about your personality type. Take a minute to indulge in some self-analysis. It's fun, I promise.

It knows no bounds. They're two very different drinks, but both are delightful and delicious. As, by the way, am I. Oh, sorry, that was a West Wing quote and that's a little too dorky, even for me.

Anywho, a couple friends and I went to this place tonight and had pitchers of margaritas and sangria. And then, one of the waiters bought us tequila shots. New. Favorite. Restaurant. So, I wouldn't exactly call this drunk blogging, but it's drunk blogging's first cousin.

I'm not sure how to describe the decor/atmosphere except to say that I felt like I was inside a pinata. The restaurant has some kind of drunk bingo thing on Monday and Tuesday nights, so there's talk of going back there two weeks from now when we've all survived our property final.

We had our last Lawyering class today, which brought us one step closer to the official end of our tenure as 1Ls. During class, I thought a lot about my first impressions of the people in my class; most of them were right. And, with a few exceptions, I've ended up friends with the people I expected to be friends with. Our professor gave a little lecture filled with advice on how to have a successful 1L summer job experience. The lecture could've been renamed "First Real Job 101," and it was probably appropriate considering the number of people who don't have any work experience.

I spent the afternoon outlining Admin. "Outlining" may not be the right verb since Admin doesn't really lend itself well to the traditional outline, but I've got some stuff down on paper that I think will be helpful.

So, that's my day: class, studying, drinking. Woo!

The Pope's not all that's new. Here's some other stuff that's at least new to me.

New songs: I Will Keep the Bad Things From You-- The Damnwells, Dance Hall Girls -- The Duhks
New salad dressing: Annie's Naturals Organic Red Wine and Olive Oil Vinagrette
New TV Show: Gray's Anatomy (Patrick Dempsey!)
New finished outline: Property. (Torts and Admin continue to taunt me in their half-finished states).
New Hat: Washington Nationals (Other than the Sioux Falls Canaries, they're as close as I'm gonna get to a hometown baseball team).
New shoes: Reefs (I finally got 'em, they're stripey).

So, I'm feeling okay about finals. Broad concepts seem to be falling into place and the things I put into my notes without really understanding them are starting to make sense. That said, I'm sooooo distracted. My summer plans are coming together and I'm anxious to get started on them. It looks like I'll be living with friends (in some form or another) for most or all of the summer. On the job front, instead of being the only law student working in my office, they've decided to take on a couple others, as well. The actual work of my job is also starting to sound surprisingly enticing. I'll be roadtripping out to California in a little over a month and the thought of driving through western America is unquantifyingly more interesting than proximate cause.

I talked to a friend who's a 1L at Berkeley today and it sounds like we're going to have a nice little crowd of ex-South Dakotans in the Bay Area this summer. I would be surprised by that, but lately I've been realizing that my friends and acquaintances tend to be both extremely mobile and ambitious, which means they show up in unexpected parts of my life over and over again.

The last ten years of my life can be easily divided into four time periods: high school, college, DC, and law school. Each has its own distinct location but I'm starting to see that the cast of characters for each is no longer distinct. At my office reunion party this past weekend, in addition to my former co-workers, I saw all sorts of people I knew in high school and friends from college, many of whom had worked on the campaign and others had worked in our state offices.

Friday night, I stayed at the house of someone I knew in high school. She became friends with one of my college friends when they worked on a campaign together. He's staying with her until he finds his own place in DC. Her other three roommates include another guy I knew in high school and a girl who's dating one of my former DC co-workers. The fourth roommate I didn't have a direct connection to other than the fact that he worked on my boss's campaign.

It'd be easy to blame these "it's a small world" situations on the small population of South Dakota and specifically the state's small world of Democratic politics, but the situations happen outside that world, too. One of my best friends from college got to know one of best friends from high school a few years ago when they were both participants in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. And, most recently, I've been emailing a law student in Berkeley, who just happens to be friends with one of my section-mates, about a summer sublet.

It's a fun phenomenon and it makes me think I've done a good job picking friends. Well, I guess all I can really take from the fact that my friends are befriending each other independent of me is that I'm consistent. That's cool. I'm glad my community of friends can no longer be divided into lists, but has instead formed a network. That's what we're supposed to do, right? That's what NYU keeps telling us will happen with happen with our law school classmates, but I'm less interested in that at the moment. Right now, I'm more interested in keeping track of where the ex-South Dakotans (and that includes those people not originally from SoDak who gave up chunks of their lives to work for our politicians) end up. They're a creative and fascinating bunch and I think this network will develop in unpredictable ways.

I flew to DC Friday afternoon to attend a huge office reunion. About 400 people who, at some point worked for the senator I worked for, were invited and a lot of them actually showed up. It was a fun, fun night. The word, "family" was thrown around a lot and we were, indeed, a very huggy, kissy, and affectionate group (okay, maybe that was related to the open bar).

The party raged on until well after the appointed end time and then it stumbled down the street to a local bar. The partygoers were, for the most part, boisterous. There was however, a little bit of sadness in the air. I've suspected for a while that my office was special and that was confirmed on Friday. Not everyone, it seems, gets to work with a team they trust for someone and something they believe in and while re-creating that kind of experience is doable, it's also tricky. I've kept in touch with a handful of people from the office and I think after last night, I'll keep in touch with a few more. They said this party was just the "first," hopefully, that's right.

Yesterday, I convinced a college friend to venture into my old neighborhood for lunch. We ate at Jetties (Nobadeer!), which is possibly the best sandwich place anywhere, ever. Then we wandered through Georgetown, which now has both an Anthropologie and a Five Guys(!), bought ice cream at Thomas Sweet (I had pistachio, natch), and continued walking to DuPont Circle where there was, of course, a loud and slighlty ambiguous protest happening.

I was a little surprised by how much I wanted to stay in DC. I guess I shouldn't have been, Friday night was filled with familiar faces and Saturday was the kind of warm, sunny day when even the postage stamp-sized yards in front of rowhouses look inviting.

Not everyone will admit it, but DC has a certain charm. Objectively, I know that New York is a better city; it's more exciting, it's more diverse, it has better food, etc. Despite all that (and the fact that I like being a law student here), I prefer DC and I miss it. I know I'm not the only one who misses our fair capital, so I took the following pictures for Hans Brix and Denny Crane. I'm posting them here as proof that if you know where to look, DC really does have some fine food.

Behold, the Nobadeer (turkey breast, stuffing, and cranberry sauce on sourdough):


A must-have part of any Georgetown shopping trip:

My feet hurt from walking, my face is a little red from the sun, and I'm full from some of the city's finest food. It's the late-Saturday-afternoon-in-DC feeling and I've missed it. I'm headed back to New York late this evening, but I'm not thinking about that right now. Instead I'm focused on the warm weather and one last yummy DC meal.

In theory, I could never have to think about ICWA again. About 30 minutes ago, I finished my second oral argument and right now I'm so happy to be done with it I don't even want to pick up the pile of ICWA research sitting on my floor to throw it away.

Both arguments took place this afternoon and both were surprisingly fun. My "judge" was actually a partner at one of the big, fancy New York law firms and he structured things in a very relaxed and conversational way. My adversaries were well-prepared and articulate. The discussion was good and at the end, the "judge" gave us incredibly helpful feedback. The most distressing part was that some of the things he liked least about my brief were things my lawyering professor liked best. But, I guess that's the way these things go.

The lawyer who judged us provided some helpful advice on creative legal writing and on the way home, my second sparring partner told me about his plans to finish a book he's been writing. The number of law students who have literary ambitions is kind of incredible. It's especially incredible when you consider that most of the briefs we've turned in this week look at lot the same. Each brief I've read has managed to filter out an argument that's unique, but it seems we've all fallen into a kind of predictable writing style. It's annoying. I hope our creativity grows along with our confidence as lawyers.

Anywho, I have no time for literature or other frivolous things; my life is now all outlines, all the time. Woo!

It was good trip and I'm glad I went. Despite only being there for about 20 hours, I got to see quite a few friends and former co-workers. I had went to my favorite Senate restaurant and my favorite Senate sandwich. I talked to a committee staffer about interning on his committee at some point. I met some cool NYU students from (gasp) outside the law school.

The lobbying went pretty much as expected; none of the staffers said anything other than what they should've said. Although, I was pleased to catch a few of them off guard. It's easy to do constituent meetings on auto-pilot and I think they were surprised to encounter a student who knew more than a little about the budget process and higher ed reauthorization.

The highlight of the day happened while I was on the bus back to New York. One of the lawyers I'll be working with the summer called to ask if I wanted to focus a lot of my work on co-authoring an article with her. I'm excited because the topic we'll be writing on is interesting and timely and she seems like she'll be a fantastic co-worker. The low point came when I realized that I'd lost my driver's license. It wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't flying on Friday. So, cross your fingers that the express package from my parents containing my passport really does arrive overnight.

Book club discussion tonight covered boy problems, clothing advice, travel plans, and a rather scholarly discussion regarding the predominant religions of Macau. I love my friends.

I don't really drink coffee, but lately, I've enjoyed the occasional cup. Last night, after watching Law Revue, I though it was a good idea to get nice big cuppa coffee before finishing my ICWA brief. I should've known better, I couldn't fall asleep until 5:30. And the, I woke at 9:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. Needless to say, I'm not at peak peformance levels right now.

Despite my muddled state, I've been pretty productive. ICWA's done and all my outlines are started. I managed to squeeze in a little fun this weekend, too: Law Revue, a little shopping, a couple meals with friends, reading in the sun in the park, and a few catch-up phone calls with the new cell phone.

And now, online "book club" with my college friends. For no particular reason, I've been missing the comfort of old friends a little extra this week. Actually, now that I think about it, the reason was the missing cell phone. I'm so used to picking up my phone anytime I have something particularly interesting to share and I felt alarmingly disconnected without it.

I'm headed to DC tomorrow and am more excited about this lobbying trip than I expected to be. I've heard the cherry blossoms are in full bloom and we're staying at a hotel in my old 'hood. It'll be great to have a little taste of "home" and see some friends along the way.

Oh, and speaking of home, Black Diamond Burrito has a lovely post about growing up in a small town, getting along with her parents, and driving legally at the age of 14. Her South Dakota experience was a bit more rural and sporty than my own, but are there are more similarities than differences. Check it out.

Sometimes I forget that. Then, I ride on the subway and am reminded that I live in a huge crazy city with lots of crazy (and occasionally huge) people. During the past couple weeks, my time has been spent almost exclusively in my apartment, my classrooms, and the law library, but this afternoon, I decided I was due for a trip to the Target in Brooklyn.

I got on the D Train just fine and then I somehow forgot that Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street are really the same station. So, I got off the train a stop too late, went to the other side of the tracks, and waited for one traveling in the other direction. About a half-hour later, I found a sign in a tucked away corner of the station explaining that on April 8, the D Train toward Manhattan wouldn't be stopping at that particular station between 11 and 3 (it was 1). Instead, I had to take the train toward Coney Island about five stops further into Brooklyn, where I could then switch to the D Train toward Manhattan, which was, of course, traveling on N tracks for the weekend. Ah, humbled yet again by the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

After finishing up at Target, I successfully found my way back to the D platform only to be greeted with an announcement that the D Train was stalled a few stops away. I ended up on a local train that back to Manhattan with a group of four screaming teenage girls (things are sooo much funnier when they're said in really loud, shrill voices). I love New York, but stuff like that makes me yearn for my car and an open stretch of highway.

My evening turned out fine, though. I tried boba tea (milky tea with tapioca balls floating in it) for the first time. I've heard about it several times and it was exactly as everyone describes it: disconcerting at first, but not at all as gross as you'd expect. I had dinner with some classmates and then we wandered around the new Best Buy in SoHo.

I had high expectations for Best Buy, but just like every other store I've tried in New York, they don't carry St. Elmo's Fire on DVD. Someday I'll find it, and then I'll watch it over and over and over again. It's impossible not to love a movie that features both Andrew McCarthy all angst-ridden over being in love with his best friend's girlfriend and Rob Lowe saying one of the cheesiest lines ever ("We're all going through this. It's our time at the edge."). Yes, I have to find it.

And, during high school, debate kind of consumed my life. Even in college, I spent quite a few Saturdays judging at high school tournaments around the state and reminiscing with friends about our own days of debate glory. After a couple years, though (probably during my junior year of college), I just stopped caring about it. I would still occasionally judge to make extra money, but I stopped caring about things like my final round of oratory and the split ballots in one of my last rounds of policy debate at nationals. I moved on. I grew up.

Today, however, I realized that part of me will always be a high school debater. This morning, I had my practice oral argument (the "real" one's next week) and as soon as we started, all my debate instincts kicked in. I flowed my adversary's arguments and mentally critiqued them in pretty much the same way I would've critiqued a 1NC speech in a policy round. I also composed a mental list of cross-examination questions despite the fact that that's not a part of the arguments. Mmy speaking style has changed a little, though. I now talk much more slowly and conversationally, I think. The structure of policy debate speeches just doesn't seem all that persuasive to me anymore.

Despite that change, one other thing remains alarmingly the same: I talk with my hands. Excessively. It's distracting, even to me. When I first started competing in oratory, I had a hard time doing any gestures. My coach worked with me to be more expressive with my hands and, well, she did too good of a job. I'm not sure what to do to stop it -- it's so much a part of the way I talk that I'm not sure I can shut it off.

Besides, it's become kind of a trademark. Over Spring Break, some friends and I were talking about quirks that we've noticed in one another that might seem a little bit odd but all of us would miss if they disappeared. I probably shouldn't speak for my friends, but I think my big gestures might be one of those things. Also, in normal conversation, I usually keep my hands under control, but when I'm at all nervous, they take on a life of their own. I'm thinking that for my oral argument I'll just write in big letters at the top of my notes "Hold onto the podium!!" I doubt it'll work, but I've gotta try something.

So, I’m going on this lobbying trip to DC and we had a briefing meeting today. Lobbying is something I know a little about, or at least, I’ve met with a lot of lobbyists. During the briefing, I felt like I was holding back a lot of advice that I thought would be helpful to the other students going on the trip (although, despite that, I think I still might’ve come across as a bit obnoxious).

I think effective lobbying involves a great deal of psychology and there are a number of fairly safe generalizations that can be made about Congressional staffers. I found that my co-workers and I tended to be impressed and annoyed by many of the same things. We also, in broad terms, fit into a certain personality profile and had common weaknesses and strengths that could be exploited. In my office, I’m pretty sure those personality traits were a big part of why we hired and some of them might have been specific to our group. That said, most of those traits are appeared to me to be pretty common across the spectrum of staffers.

For example, when lobbyists would come in and only talk at me, I tended to tune out and start doing other work in my head (and I know others did this – ask me about the aliens sometime). The exception to that rule was people who had unique and distinctly compelling personal stories to share, but they were few and far between.

The best lobbyists can listen to all the canned stuff staffers have to say and still find ways to get something out of the meeting. A lot of people I met with forgot to think about what they were going to do if my Senator happened to agree with them. Often, when I would say that he supported their position, they’d let the meeting end there. Smart lobbyists, however, take that opportunity to position themselves or their organization as some kind of trusted ally thereby creating future opportunities to have influence.

Anyway, I’m sorry, this is probably boring and I’m sure most of these things are intuitive, but I’ve had fun thinking about it today. I’m usually kind of anti-lobbying, but for this afternoon, at least, I’ve been thinking that with the right organization and the right issues, maybe (and I mean that very hesitantly) this is something I could do.

And today, the weather was beautiful. I had all sorts of errands scheduled today and somehow, all of them multiplied (I'd get to one office and they'd tell me I should've gone to the office five blocks away or I'd arrive at the right place and realize I'd forgotten my checkbook). Usually, my patience for that kind of thing runs out fast, but today it was so nice outside I was kind of grateful for all the extra walking.

I tried to each lunch in Washington Square Park while I read a law review article for tomorrow's torts class but I ended up spending most of my time talking with an old woman who sat on the other side of my bench. She offered me some saltines and the wound up telling me how she'd lived in the neighborhood for 50 years. She showed me a picture of her cat (she calls him her "four-legged husband") and told me about how she used to see Eleanor Roosevelt riding through the park on her horse. The history major in me just couldn't resist a story like that; torts could wait.

I did get some homework finished this afternoon and then I finally put in a claim for a new cell phone with my insurance company. After my first phone call, I realized I had neglected, of course, to first obtain a police report regarding my lost/stolen phone. The Sixth Precinct's station is about a fifteen minute walk from my apartment and my stroll over there was lovely. Front stoops were filled with chatting neighbors and the late afternoon sunlight made the West Village extra quaint. Passers-by seemed friendlier, families seemed happier, and dogs seemed slightly less pissed at their owners for making them live in Manhattan. Oh, and the fine men and women of the Sixth Precinct were fantastically helpful.

My new phone will be here on Friday. The insurance company is actually sending me an upgraded version of my phone since they didn't have any of my model in stock. And, they're including a car charger, which I would've had to buy this summer anyway. I'm still kind of irked at myself for losing my phone and I'd rather not pay the deductible, but really the situation turned out pretty well.

And now, I think I'm going to watch the season finale of The West Wing. I haven't finished nearly enough work today, but really, what's another hour going to matter?

• I'm going to DC twice next week. During the first trip, I'll be lobbying for NYU and I found out today that I'll be meeting with one of my former bosses; that'll be weird.

• Scheduling an online book club meeting for eight women living in four adjacent time zones is occasionally troublesome. This month, our friend who's traveling in Asia will be joining us online from Macau. That's the kind of scheduling challenge that makes my head hurt.

• I saw Justice Kennedy speak on campus yesterday. He's a surprisingly engaging and charming speaker (I say surprisingly not because I expected him to be boring but rather because I know so little about him).

• I love Kinkos. I love how easy they make it to create something that looks cool and professional.

• I wore a watch today for the first time in roughly three years. I didn't like it, but I've been thinking that wearing one might be part of being a grown-up.

So, the guys given the job of cleaning my apartment's floors arrived about five minutes after I woke up this morning. No problem. I just hung out in my room while they were cleaning my roommate's and then her room while they were cleaning mine.

The cleaning guys are very considerate -- advising me on how long to leave my window open so the floor dries and pointing out more than one that I should wear shoes in my room because the carpet's still damp. Okay, so maybe they've called me "sweetheart" a few more times than I usually allow from people I don't know, but my carpets are spotless. I vaccuum regularly, but this is carpet cleaning on an entirely different level. Now they're cleaning the kitchen and bathroom floors. What a great way to start the day.

A slip of paper under my door on Friday informed me that NYU maintenance will be cleaning all the floor of my apartment tomorrow. All I have to do is make sure the only things on the floor when they arrive are the furniture. Thing is, this rooms pretty small and even when things are tidy, the floor's pretty essential to my storage plan. Long story short, I have way, way too much stuff. Sevenish months ago I arrived with two suitcases and a carry-on; several shipments from home and a few shopping trips later, I'm ill with the thought of having to move all this in May.

So, I'm purging. I've already got three bags of clothes to donate somewhere. With the clothes, I'm imposing a strict "if it doesn't fit or is at all ugly, it goes" rule. See, a lot of the clothes I initially brought here are now a size or two too big. I still like most of them, but they look really bad. It's hard to give them up, they represent a nice chunk of my income from the past two years. Oh well, streamlining always feels good, right? Last year, I donated a couple carloads of clothes and dishes and other random apartment stuff to Goodwill before I left DC. That felt great.

Also, I was hoping my floor-cleaning preparations would reveal my cell phone hidden in some nook of my room. Alas, it's still missing. It's been a week. I don't think I've ever missed an inanimate object this much. I'm calling Verizon tomorrow to invoke my insurance plan. Grrr.

I'm posting at 2:07am to report something amazing: I've finished my Property reading. I decided this evening that I couldn't go to sleep until I finished all of our next, massive, assignment. Now, fifty casebook pages and five supplemental readings later, I'm done. Most of the reading was on gated communities and zoning laws, both of which are surprisingly interesting topics. The last reading, however, which was on the Bush Administration's energy and air pollution policies was just depressing.

The article got me thinking about the job I used to have and some of my worst days there. Days when I would leave the Hill feeling worn out and disappointed in a way that I'd never felt prior to taking the job and have only felt once since. I've been reading a quality South Dakota politics blog for the past few weeks called Clean Cut Kid and it's author, Seth, said something in one of his posts today that has been rolling around in my head for the past few hours. He wrote this about his job working with abused and neglected children and their familes:

On the best days, it’s the most rewarding thing I could ever imagine. On most days, it’s depressing. At the end of the worst days, I feel less human.

Now, I'm not saying what I did at my job compared to working with abused and neglected children (I'm pretty sure that's a job I lack the strength to do), but what he wrote is a pretty accurate description of some of the feelings I had at work. A significant part of my days were spent talking and meeting with constituents and from them I learned of experiences that were simply outside of the realm of what I imagined humanity to be. And yet, I continued to be surprised each time I learned that humanity was a little less than what I'd imagined before.

I haven't thought about that feeling in a while (I usually choose to remember the good days and the people who were examples of the stunning potential at the other end of humanity's spectrum) and I'm actually going to stop writing about it now; I'm too tired to not get all weepy. I promise I'll write about something happy tomorrow.

A few days ago, a friend commented that we're really not 1Ls anymore. Today, that really felt true. The list of next year's classes finally became available this afternoon and I led a group of admitted students on a tour around campus.

I had a good time with my group of admitted students mainly because I always love it when people ask for my advice. It was interesting to note the differences between the students who are just now finishing their undergrad degrees and the ones who've been out of college for a while. The undergrads seemed to be mulling over big questions about whether they really should go to law school next year, if at all. Then older ones seemed more focused on practical concerns. They asked about the challenges of finding affordable housing in New York, about whether their spouses would feel excluded from the law school community, and about the details of everyday life in Manhattan.

Regardless of their ages, all of them exuded at least a little fear. I wanted to say, "Relax! The hard part's over, you've been accepted at a great school and in all likelihood, several other great schools. Don't believe people who tell you there's one right school for you. The real trick to this process is not so much about the research you compile on each school but about trusting yourself enough to actually make the decision. And then, the last hurdle is committing to that decision."

I also wanted to tell them that while there are a few schools that are thought to be "better" than NYU and a lot that are thought to be "worse," if they haven't yet figured out that the quality of an education usually depends more on the student than the school, then they might not ready to be pay this much tuition.

But I didn't tell them that. No one likes a lecture, and besides, this myth that there's one right school for everyone can be reassuring. Instead, I talked about my professors and classmates. I told them the reasons I chose NYU (the real reasons, not the flippant and dumb reasons I usually list). I answered questions about the fun and the challenges that go along with living in the Village. I also showed them my favorite spot in the library and I'm hoping if any of them end up here, they'll recognize that I have first dibs on it.

I don't envy these admitted students. I'm excited about picking new classes, applying for clinics, and taking on leadership roles. I think I wrote earlier this year that I was ready get past the "beginning" of law school and now that's officially happened. I'm glad; middles are fun.