We are posted in my favorite room, the video bar, which is like a gay sports bar that plays music videos instead of football.
The Ting Tings are playing when the bar tender plops these small red drinks in front of us.
I shoot the bartender a look like “What the heck?” and he says,
Bartender: “These are from the guy across the bar.”
I sleep with my window open.
I want to say this has something to do with “enjoying the Minnesota summer” but the truth is that my bedroom window has been stuck open for a few months and I’m too lazy to call the maintenance people.
Last night I regretted not getting that stupid window fixed because around 2am someone started shooting.
My second visit to Dr. Cranky was a deep lesson in fail.
I needed a second optometrist appointment because my right contact was somewhat blurry and my left contact was completely useless.
I couldn’t believe that in addition to being unpleasant and cranky, the optometrist managed to mess up my prescription too! And Target optometrists are all independent, so if I switched doctors I would have to repay for an exam.
So I go to Dr. Cranky’s optical and get reexamined:
Dr. Cranky: “Uh, here, try these contacts.”
I pop the contacts in.
Dr. Cranky: “Better?”
Me: “Yep!”
Dr. Cranky looks awkwardly at the ground.
These are pictures of the area around the Kitty Kat Club.
The Kitty Kat Club is on the edge of Dinkytown, which is the college village where UMN’s legal fraternity (Gamma Eta Gamma) is located. I lived in the neighborhood most of 1L year.
I used to keep a photo blog, which was integrated into this blog.
Here are some of my favorites:
Week #10 was the last week of summer school, aka, finals! I spent the beginning of the week studying, mostly at the Walter library. After my last final I went to work, and worked 10 hour days for the next 4 days.
I also decided to get health conscious, and just say no to Caribou pastries. That’s also the week I almost ran Jill off the road, and celebrated the end of my first year in Minnesota.
Around downtown Minneapolis:
I went to the downtown Target yesterday to get contacts for the first time. After waiting in line for a half hour, I was told the optometrist was not in and sent to the suburbs.
It’s a rainy summer.
The first picture is the flag outside of work. I can only see a segment of tinted1 sky from my cubicle. I think it’s better that my cubicle isn’t closer to the window because office life is already distracting, and I would get nothing done if I could zone out by looking outside.
Today I decided to get coffee at a Target store’s Starbucks.
The Barista is blonde and looks extremely tired. The couple in front of me is tall – the girl resembles Demi Lovato and is about 6’1, her boyfriend is 6’3.
The couple’s drink orders are fairly involved, so I know it will take the Barista a few minutes to prepare the drinks.
The couple is still ordering when I hear someone limping behind me.
Jack had the nerve to imply that I am OCD because I do a full scrub-down of the apartment once a week.
I told Jack that if he knew the gory details, he wouldn’t think once-a-week was too much:
I’ve officially been in Minnesota for a year. There are already extensive summaries of fall semester and spring semester, so I’ve decided to pick a picture/memory to represent each month.
Here it goes:
August: Exploring Twin Cities
September: school starts, law students riverdance.
October: Let’s talk about the weave
November: Outlining…oh, and Fedde Le Grand/Moon Goons!
When Jill and I left work today it was pouring. Jill’s car was closer than mine, so she volunteered to sprint through the downpour, fetch her car, and then drive me to mine.
How did I thank her? Well, 10 minutes later Jill and I were driving our cars down the highway and the rain became blinding. Of course this happened when the road curved so I had my face up against my windshield trying to figure out where the raised median was.
Suddenly Jill’s car was behind mine – I had drifted into her lane and cut her off!
At the next light I rolled down my window and apologized profusely. Jill said “don’t worry about it” which is Minnesotan for “you crazy asshole!”
I was officially that guy.
I just finished a 10-hour shift at work.
I’m pulling three 10-hour days to make up for my absence from the office during finals. And although the longish hours aren’t ideal for the dog, the hours are compatible with his strict-bed bed rest requirements for the heartworm treatment. 1
My first official day2 of summer started at the auto-parts store. One of my headlights died last night, and Gibs offered to install it for me so I wouldn’t get ripped off by my Nissan dealer again – Gibs was horrified to hear that last month I shelled out something like $40 to get a headlamp replaced at the dealer.
The $40 charge seemed less outrageous when I watched the ordeal Gibs went through to replace the lamp. Apparently the owner’s manual suggests taking off the bumper to replace the lights, but instead of dismantling my bumper, Gibs unscrewed the coolant tank, which was blocking the back of the headlight.
After trolling around libraries for a week, I finally finished summer semester.
And last night, around midnight, I got a little tab-happy:
Reasonable people can disagree on what specific clothes are appropriate, but the idea is that you should look put together and comfortable.
Your clothes should not be distracting, and inappropriate clothes are distracting.
On one message board, a NYU student said that she wore shorts and flipflops to orientation.
And well, while that may be acceptable at some schools, I would like to reiterate my point in plainer language: although you are unlikely to get “into trouble” for wearing flip-flops to orientation, it is not a good idea to wear flipflops unless you receive an email or letter from your school that says “wear flipflops.”
You don’t have to show up to orientation in stilettos, sporting a bucci bag, and doing the Halle Berry, but save the frump for finals.
It’s professional school, not the beach.1
Now, NYU Law may have people hiking around the city – but that’s atypical for law school.
At UMinnesota, they take the “class picture” during orientation. It’s a picture that gets blown up and put on a wall – and yes, the people wearing khakis and the Jesus-sandals look silly.
But seriously.
Show up in flipflops.
It’s fine.
Just remember that you knew better when you find yourself standing next to this girl.
Again, the idea is to look put-together, and not messy, stuffy, or awkward.
1And while I’m on my bitchy gay rant: no chipped nails please.
Extra Reading: I recommend “First Impressions: What You Don’t Know About How Others See You” for a scientific perspective on how we come across to others. I wish that I had read this book much earlier in life.
Every-other day for the past two weeks, police lights have lit up my street up like a vivacious performance.
I feel like I live in the projects without the benefit of supplemental security income. My neighbor was arrested twice in the past two weeks, and the police are constantly raging about for miscellaneous disturbances.
The problem with the police action is that the cops are the main disturbance in the neighborhood – blaring lights and shouting – and I doubt they cause this much remmidemmi when doing business in the suburbs.
Some of my friends suggested that the police drammy is exciting. And while Yesina’s first arrest was amusing, by the second arrest I was annoyed. I don’t need to hear Yesina screaming “DON’T TAKE MY BABY!” when I have a morning class the next day.
Yesterday, I drove to school so I could go to the Walter Library.
I park the car in the uber-expensive parking garage and decide it’s time to febreeze my seats.1
I febreeze the car from the back seat and then get my bag. My cellphone fell out of my pants pocket while I was driving, so I scoop the phone from the front seat and leave the ramp.
I am halfway across the Washington Avenue bridge when I decide to check my text messages. I pull my cellphone out of my pocket and notice that it is wet.
When I open the phone, the keys are drenched and the screen is white. I think, Crap! I febreezed my phone to death!
So I walk back across campus and go to the Sprint store. The guy at the Sprint store asks if the phone is water damaged. I say, “Hm. It shouldn’t be!”
Sprintguy tells me to come back in about a half hour, so I go to the Target across the street.
Where I studied today:
They are still getting things together (the paint on the walls was still wet!)
By request, here are my 5 simple rules for law school orientation:
How you present yourself1 during orientation will shape how people think of you for the rest of the semester.
The appropriate style? Business casual — Think Banana Republic rather than yoga pants.
And no, you don’t need to buy designer clothes – the point is that you can look put-together without wearing your church clothes, or looking like a rental car agency manager (no high-water khakis please.)
My experience: There was a girl who wore the same thing throughout orientation: ass-cheek exposing shorts, a red tank top, an oversized hoodie, and her greasy hair in a sloppy bun. She was a super-smart girl, but she looked like she smelled, and was called uncharitable names (like slutty hobo) for the rest of the year.
This isn’t the first day of college.
Bedding your classmates will come back to haunt you. This is professional school, not Tinder.
It takes people a while to understand that law school is actually a level playing field. Unless you ditched a full ride at Harvard for Nowhere University, you are probably not the smartest kid in your class. So be careful, because the section-mate you are bragging to just might be a PhD or getting a dual degree in Rocket Science.
Also, no one cares how much time you spent reading hornbooks during the summer, how prestigious your undergrad was, or how much money you made in your former job. You are in law school. Save yourself the ego-check and humble yourself before you get to school.
The grades are based on finals, so you don’t get any points for intimidating your classmates during orientation.
My experience: During orientation, the entire 1L class was in an auditorium. Some prestigious lawyer gave us a lecture about his experience and this girl raised her hand, preceded to tell the speaker (and the entire 1L class) about a lengthy book she read on a completely different subject, and asked the lawyer for his thoughts on the book.
The presenter’s mouth said: “Uh, I haven’t read that one.” His face added: “You crazy bitch.”
She was “that girl” for the rest of the semester. (that post is here)
Your classmates will get to know you in time. Disclosing things too early will just earn you a reputation as a socially inept.
We don’t need to know about your DUIs, roaring undergraduate drug habits, or thoughts about your weight.
We also don’t need your blog address. We’ll stalk you when we add you on facebook.
This happens at every school outside of Utah: after orientation, you will head to a local pub with your section-mates, someone will get crunk and embarrass themselves.
And in law school, no one bothers to stop a social train wreck.
Law students will just stand by and chuckle nervously as the disaster unfolds – and because no one ever says anything, this behavior is repeated throughout the year. Don’t be that guy.
And remember it is not too late to get the essential law school summer reading:
by Ann Demarais and Valerie White1Some schools have formal orientation dress codes, most don’t.
It finally stopped storming, so I fetched Harley and went to the East Bank to study outside.
Harley got very serious about digging a ditch to sit in: