Best Week Ever 3: plodding, plotting.

Alesus and I ended the week eating oysters on the rooftop patio of Stella’s Fish Café in Uptown Minneapolis.

It was our first time on the patio, and the view was worth the hefty price tag:

This was Alesus’ first time trying oysters. He was disturbed by the texture.

It was also my first time trying a chichi mixed drink. I think it is called “Fisherman’s Punch” and it tastes just like Hi-C, except there is no sloshed punch-bowl-man to burst in and scream “OH YEAH!”

Earlier in the week we made an appearance at Classafrass with Jack and Darmor. Jack kept repeating that polite nodding + smiling combo which makes me think that he wasn’t amused. The show was good though!

We also made appearances at the Minneapolis Eagle, the 19 Bar¹ and the Showplace ICON theater in St. Louis Park, where we saw Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

The ICON/Swankadoodle Theater (@ShowPlaceICON) is one of my favorite movie theaters in Minneapolis. It is akin to the Cobb CinéBistro in Miami. The trip to St. Louis Park is worth it just for the lack of obnoxious ghettofied teens. But the lounge, free parking, and reserved seating makes the Swankadoodle fabulous.

The social rounds and movie made up for a hectic, front-loaded school week. The special assignments I mentioned and bitched about last week made scheduling completely awkward for the second week in a row.

One of the worst weekly assignments is the response paper I have to write for my legal history course. My legal history course consists of weekly presentations from scholars who have works-in-progress. We read the scholarly work, write a response paper, and our professor gives that paper to the scholar before his or her two-hour presentation.

The fact that the scholar has our criticism beforehand makes me hesitant to fully critic an article.

My legal history workshop class is a reminder of why I did not get my doctorate in history – the scholar’s work was interesting, but ultimately based on sketchy evidence. The scholar dismissed our concerns about the basis for his research because the evidence was “the best evidence available” and something about how history is not an exact science. But I think that answer is unacceptable.
I don’t expect a history article to have the same level of evidentiary support required for say, a medical study or a science paper, but I think a humanities scholar must still establish a strong foundation for her scholarship and convince her readers that it isn’t poorly grounded pretentious fluff.
Just saying.

The response paper was just one of the reasons why my week was front-loaded. The paper is always due by 9am on Wednesday, which shortens the time frame I would normally use to complete reading for a Thursday evening class.

This made for marathon work days during the end of the week and weekend. I even brought the dogs with me during Saturday’s 10-hour workday and took them on several walks throughout.

I’m not sure how much they liked the idea.

At least waiting in the car is better than being stuck at home? Maybe? Gertrude doesn’t seem to agree…

¹ I usually do not slum it at the 19 Bar, but it was the first Outlaw (GLBT law students association) happy hour and I wanted to show my face. I think it’s important for 3Ls of all sorts to socialize with 1Ls so they identify us as resources. I know that’s very orientation-leader-y but I’m serious.