Saturday, May 28, 2005

NY

New York is Absolutely Faboo!

This is the first time i have visited New York during a non-rainy season. The weather does make all the difference as the sun is up and the people are in short shorts. All of the cities eccentricities, the good and the bad, are on display.

Speaking of which, I came out to my best friend while in NY. I have known him since I was 6 and we grew up attending the same school. We even rode the metro together every day for grades 4 through 7. His girlfriend responded well but I have yet to have a real one-on-one talk with him in order to gage his true reaction.

While in NY I also ventured onto Broadway.

Saw “Spamalot,” this year’s Tony favorite. Not mine though. Too long, too much slap stick, and would have been worthless had the cast lacked some of today’s brightest (Tim Curry, Hank Azaria, and David Hyde Pierce).

“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” is a riot. It is beyond creative and is borderline genius. Who would have thought a musical based on a spelling bee could sell out? I'll tell you who! Our friend, the producer.

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf” was also a solid production. The cast, including Kathleen Turner, tore each other apart. Kathleen’s performance was mesmerizing. She really is a great actor. Too bad she ruined her own vocal cords.

“The Pillowman,” with Jeff Goldblum and Billy Crudup, was "jaw dropping" indeed. The play is devilishly funny, well stylized, and the chemistry between the brothers is surreal-it starts of as tender and becomes both harsh and bizarre. The best, and most heartening, aspect of the play is the Armenianization of the main character who’s name, oddly enough, is Katurian Katurian Katurian. Let us hope this character, just as Lando Calrissian, brings great fortune to this play. Hands down, “The Pillowman” is the best play I have seen since my last trip to London.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Preparing for Law School is Discouraging

It feels as though I have been blindfolded for the last year. There is no single or adequate preparation that one can execute in order to feel comfortable. There really aren’t any books out there that both address the issue and are worth reading. Susan Estrich’s latest only deals with getting into law school. She hardly addresses the issue of necessary preparation - most likely because it is a misnomer. There is no preparation and it is anything but necessary. You are expected to just jump in and manage as you go along. Nothing can prepare one because the experience is simply too unique and irreplicable.

Which is fine and all, but having a year free before law school can certainly become daunting in itself once one realizes that you can only do so much to prepare for the next three years of rigorous brain f---ing. It’s almost unfair to have a whole year and only do so little.

So, to fill the void, I have taken up speed reading, bought many books on Amazon, purchased a backpack for law school, and signed up for a typing course. Yes, I graduated from a top 25 university with a strong GPA without knowing how to type properly. In my defense, typing classes were taken in high school by those who did not know what “AP” stood for.

All of this should improve my overall ability to survive law school while, hopefully, maintaining a strong GPA. However, the void is still within. I feel as though I have lost a year. Don’t get me wrong, I have certainly gained vast knowledge in civil procedure matters and strengthened my desire to become a litigator by working at a law firm. And the full ride from Loyola is certainly appreciated. But neither of these overwhelms the emptiness I feel. It is as though I have made the deal of a lifetime only to discover more costs down the road.

In the meantime, I will have some opportunities to travel at least. As I blog, I am planning a summer vacation to Austria. Maybe living abroad for a few weeks will fill-in some of the void.

UPDATE - 6/20/2005 (There is hope!)

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

http://www.quizdiva.net/bt/linguistic.jpg">>You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.
You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.


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Name:
Location: LA, California, United States
...three years ago, the leader of al-Qaida in Mesopotamia wrote to his guru Osama Bin Laden, saying that there was a real danger of the electoral process succeeding in Iraq and of "suffocating" the true Islamist cause. The only way of preventing this triumph of the democratic heresy, wrote Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was to make life so unbearable for the heretical Shiites that they would respond in kind. The ensuing conflict would ruin all the plans of the Crusader-Zionist alliance." By Mr. Hitch"