I recently got Gunter some University of Miami gear and he…doesn’t seem to happy about it.
As a Chihuahua mix, Gunter is extremely difficult to shop for. He’s exactly between sizes, so things are usually too large or small. In this case, the UMiami shirt is a bit too tight.
The University of Miami has gone through some major renovations since the last time I visited.
The cell-block dorm towers are still there, as is the law school and library, however there is a brand new student center, a hospital, and the dumpy student dive bar is now a gorgeous multistory restaurant.
I recently came across this hilarious sorority recruitment video from my alma mater:
The video is pretty epic – and says a lot about the Miami fantasy – yachts, multi-million dollar condos, hanging out with your closest 30 friends on the beach.
Of course all of the girls are also in great shape, and there’s even a black and a Latin girl “for diversity.”
There are a few shots on the actual University of Miami campus, the message is very clear: rich girl’s vacation.
This is why I don’t whine about my 5:30 a.m. personal training sessions, 7-hour IRS Vita training, or picking up 19 hours of overtime at work. I’m more productive than ever and understanding the purpose of growing/learning pains makes the process easier, and even fun.
Short-term discomfort is necessary to achieve long-term gains. Understanding that discomfort is part of a greater process gives it purpose and makes it easier to work through. Sometimes I wish I had this mindset back during college, but I trotted out of undergrad and law school just fine.
Palm trees, mutant ducks and Lake Osceola.
It was kind of a cool place to go to college.
It was ugly Christmas sweater day at work. I don’t have any ugly Christmas sweaters, so I wore an ugly University of Miami sweater.
Close enough.
After work I ferried the dogs to the pet hotel. The paperwork was horribly confusing after a 10-hour workday. The nice thing is that I managed to finish all of my work for the week, so I don’t have to take my work laptop on vacation.
College was hilarious.
My college dorm rooms were a little… colorful?
I just read the Above The Law story on the 1L deferrals at the University of Miami’s law school, and I thought, “Hm. That picture looks awfully familiar.”
That shouldn’t have been a surprise, since I took the picture last summer.
Remember, if you’re going to swipe content, it’s polite to link.
The things one misses in law school!
At the University of Miami we had a campus lake. The lake had alligators.
I called the biggest alligator “Henry” but some other students called it “Donna.” I saw the alligator sunbathing almost every morning as I walked to class.
Well, while I was in law school land, up here in Minneapolis, someone lured the alligator out of the water and beheaded him!
Donna the endangered crocodile, beloved by University of Miami students — at a very safe distance — was slaughtered as a thrill kill, university police said Thursday.
UM police and state wildlife officials on Thursday arrested a 16-year-old in the butchering and beheading of the nine-foot animal in a campus canal early this month. They’re looking for an adult who they say also took part, luring the reptile with fishing chum, tying it down and chopping it up.
The crocodile suffered, authorities said.
”They used knives to kill it,” said UM Police Chief David Rivero. “It was a very disturbing killing of the crocodile.” (Via Miami Herald)
I’m appalled and apparently, very out of the loop. There is a facebook group and everything…
I don’t understand how this is even possible. The University of Miami has more cameras than a high security prison – a response to V-tech I think – walking across campus feels like filming for a reality TV show.
There also rent-a-cops, real-cops, international students, and stoners crawling the campus at night. How can someone behead an alligator without being noticed?
… and if they can take out Donna-Henry, imagine how safe the students must feel.
*** Update
I can’t even attribute my ignorance to law school. I completely missed this during my last semester of undergrad:
My Lexis points are out of control because I keep doing these completely random searches. For example: today, I wondered “Hm. I wonder how many times my undergraduate university has been sued.”
One quick trip to Lexis brought up a few interesting cases. My favorite: Montalvo v. University of Miami*
The case brings up the same issues that dissuaded me from writing a senior thesis at the University of Miami. I was told by members in two different departments that the success of my senior thesis would depend on how well by faculty advisors got along. If I accidentally picked two warring professors I’d be screwed, because each would try to fashion my work in their own style.
I don’t know if a “internal war” was truly going on in the case above, but it wouldn’t be a surprise. I suppose that research into the nature of your professors and the subsequent ability to reconcile their differences is a significant (if unspoken) requirement in the process.
* 705 So. 2d 1042
*********** edit,
Another interesting case is Johnston v. Meredith (840 So. 2d 315). The case involves a wrongful death that happened the year before my first year at Miami. A fraternity pledge drowned in the school lake. His estate sued several of his would-be fraternity brothers. The case made it to the appellate level but Lexis doesn’t carry the (more informative) trial court records.
Looks like a duck…
…but Quacks like UMiami.
I graduated today. Well, sort of.
My last final-exam was today. I’m not going to commencement, so, for undergrad. That’s it.
I’m sure Angela Lansbury will forgive me for skipping out on her speech.
This week eletronics failed me: I lost my phone, broke my mp3 player, ran into a card-eating ATM, and sent my laptop to Gatewayland for repair.
I also lived in the library for the better part of the week: 6 papers and one group project. Yes. Indeed.
The website, and twitter have new designs. I kept it simple since the the last design was a bit gaudy.
Summer school started – LSAT prep, Homedepot, Wal-Mart, dorm construction/reconstruction…painted three dorms, redid the fish tanks…traveled, & etc.
JHR had been here for over a week but only called yesterday.
He brought Kens, and it was a blast in that – Röyksopp, Sigur Rós “we’re from Norway and taking a walk” sort of way.
– Working, reading, writing – they shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.
– Throwback to my days in Zandvoort (what an interesting name for a city, “Sandfort”), emerging big beats, the ice cold ocean full of dead jellyfish, and the money that flittered from my preteen pocket.
– The flittering returned when I bought a day by day agenda, (for like $50) from a decrepit OfficeMax and immediately began micromanaging.
Spring semester started with fall grades still in arbitration.
The menu:
Abstract Art theory (History 560)
Early Modern Andean Art (History 321)
Creative writing w/ Ansay (English 209)
Jews, Turks, & the Moors (English 495)
Lit. & Culture in Classic Greece & Rome (English 310)
Renaissance Venice (History 531)
Fun, fun… I got my planner and inky pens – here I go.
Movies, writing, and Hialeah conspiracies…haha, at least that’s what JHR calls it when we play tricks on Mikey…
Ambitious fireworks in the parking lot (are fireworks legal in Dade County?), duty calls, grunts, Denny’s (aka a case study in neglect) & screeches.
Reading George Eliot’s “Middemarch”, movies, writing, working at the bio department, duty… — winter is here again.