Ups and Downs

So today I'm in the library catching up on the reading I should have done earlier this week. It's not so bad, after a fun party last night, there's not much will to go out left in me. The place last night was pretty decent. It was called 57th Fighter Wing or something like that. Had a World War II aviator theme to it. The costumes were pretty fun to see also. A few Ali G's, random stuff like that. A lot of short skirts (not that I'm complaining or anything).

Problem is that often when I party, I get moody. So last night had it's ups and downs. For a short while I'd be talking to someone having a grand ole time, the next minute I'd feel crappy and want to go home. It always happens at parties.

Friday night at the Northeast khane was really nice. We got there a little late, so we wound up being in their extention facility. It didn't have the same feel at the Main khane here. It actually reminded me of the Long Island jamatkhana, but a bit bigger. Luckily I got to see some Al-Ummah kids. Really glad to see these kids doing well, especially some who have really turned their lives around since. I take a lot of pride in these kids, so that was definitely an up. When leaving after the services, we were in a van being shuttled to the distant parking lot. A lady with a 10 month old baby girl came into the van with us. The little girl was adorable... her name was Sophia. She grabbed my fingers in her hands and started teething on them. It was really cute. AK and some other guys were in the back being funny. AK even said to the 10 month old Sophia when her mom was taking her out of the car, 'call me.' We all got a good laugh out of it. I think the baby's mother was a little weirded out by us. But oh well... a fun night nonetheless.

So this weekend was full of ups and downs. The ups remind me of the beginnings of life, whether it be a fun conversation at a party or playing with an infant. The downs remind me of the ends of life, whether it be a lull at the party or the general feeling of apathy when I wake up some mornings. Hopefully I'll be able to balance myself out somewhere in the middle.

Fork in the Road

It's hard to believe that we've endured 4 years of the Bush administration. Yes yes, I did vote for that [insert expletive of choice here] in 2000, but I'm not dumb enough to make that mistake again. I just finished filling out my absentee ballot, and for the first time in my life, I'm pretty much voting democrat down the line. The only exception I made was with Mike Balboni for state assembly, he's the republican incumbent, and the other guy had no information available whatsoever. For the past week or so I've been driving myself nuts trying to visit the websites these candidates maintain to get information about them. It's a huge pain. luckily a friend told me about http://www.vote-smart.org/, which lists the candidates for you when you plug in your zip code, tells you their voting records, where they stand on certain issues, all that useful stuff. So for the second time in my life, I'm casting a vote in an official election, but for the first time, I'm actually voting as an informed citizen.

Next week, America will be at a fork in the road. Do we continue into the endless quagmire pretending that everything is ok, or do we vote for the other candidate to bring us the remote, but nonetheless realistic, possibility that we can go back to normal. I hate what the Bush administration has done to our country. We used to be an open and optimistic society. Now we're a bunch of mindless flagwaving drones. We used to take pride in what our nation accomplished in terms of peace and prosperity, now we're scorned for our ruthlessness and apathy to the plight of the rest of the planet. We once had a booming economy, now we have the worst job situation since the depression. What happened?

So pessimism aside, this week was pretty decent. I got a lot of rest, got a lot of reading done. I went to Party City earlier and got my haloween costume... I'm going as the Monopoly Man this year. I even got white face paint. Now all I'm missing is the monocle. I remember when we were little, my sister and I used to go trick or treating. But since my parents weren't in the country for all that long at that point, nobody told us we were supposed to say, 'trick or treat' when we ring the doorbell. I remember there was this other Indian family that lived across the street from us all those years ago, and when we rung their doorbell, the father answered. My sister and I just held out our bags with the silent expectation of candy. Luckily, this Uncle was a good natured fellow, and he told us we have to say "Trick or Treat." He even said something like 'now I'm shutting the door... ring the bell again, and when I open it, you have to say, "TRICK OR TREAT" very loudly.' And he did. Just another random memory of childhood that popped up.

So tonight I'm going to visit the Northeast Jamatkhana. Hopefully I'll run into more Al-Ummah kids I havn't seen in a long while. That should definitely be nice.

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

IIED. My Lwrap (Legal Writing, Research, and Advocacy Program) assignment is on intentional infliction of emotional distress. It's a hell of a lot of work. I mentioned it earlier and wrote about a few interesting cases I came across in my research. Then it hit me, law school by definition is the intentional infliction of emotional distress. It reminded me of something one of the associates told me when I was a paralegal: "Law school really has nothing to do with the practice of law. It's about feeling pain, and learning to deal with it." I had no clue how right she was.

Although the case is interesting, it's a huge pain. I've been working for several hours every day on this thing, and I'm being hit with writer's block. It sucks. I also hate it when I see other people in my section who are far ahead of the game and already have their draft's out. Makes me wish I had a better work ethic.

So around here, things have been decent. Luckily Atlanta isn't all that cold just yet. Although last week it started getting chilly, so I went over to Syms and bought a jacket. Funny, now I buy a size small. Who would have ever though I'd see that day again? I also remember those painful days when I was younger and my dad used to drag all of us to Syms. That was horrible. It wasn't until after I went off to college, and realized I could actually get decent clothes from Syms, that the nightmarish quality of the store subsided.

I was doing my civil procedure reading earlier today, and got a good laugh. The case involved was Noble v. Bradford Marine, Inc. 789 F. Supp. 395 (D.D. Fla. 1992). The case is about removal of a case to federal court, but apparantly, the Judge who wrote the opinion, District Judge James C. Paine, just saw "Waynes World." Each heading in the case has something to do with that movie. "Hurling Chunks," "Like a Winged Monkey Flying Out of the Ashes..." "Not!" "A Schwing and a Miss." He even goes so far as to say, "[Defendant's] most bogus attempt at removal is 'not worthy' and the Defendant's must 'party on' in state court." (emphasis mine). I'm not kidding. This is an official federal court opinion that is published in the Federal Supplement. If you have access to LexisNexis or Westlaw, look it up. My belief is that this Judge who wrote the opinion is either an aging hipster, or rather took his kids to see the movie and enjoyed it more than they did. But I have to say, it did provide for better reading than most other cases I've had to read.

Last week I was talking to Saba, and we were thinking of going to a Civil War reenactment sometime over the next few weeks. That would rock. The thing I don't understand about these popular local celebrations of history is that the folks doing the reenactments are the ones who lost the war! Do they have reenactments in Germany and Japan of World War II battles knowing that they lost those wars? I doubt it... they're probably still trying to get over it. But this is the American south. I think someone should tell the folks around here that they lost the civil war. Al Franken spoke of it best in his book Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them, when he refers to the American Civil War as the greatest act of treason in American history. He's right. But for some reason, the people around here just don't get it. But I'd still love to see one of those things for a laugh.

Back to work for me.

October Surprise

So again, I'm at the library. Last week, working on a legal writing assignment, I spent way too much time here than I would have liked. I'm sick of this place, the white lights and endless rows upon rows of case reporters and statute books are losing their charm. Other than that, I still do better work here than I do in my room. For some reason, I feel ultra lazy when there's a refrigerator and a bed nearby.

So this week has been fairly mundane. I watched parts of the third debate yesterday. Is it me, or are these two candidates saying the same crap over and over? Instead of these useless debates, let them just go up there and make 'yo mamma' jokes about each other's mothers... that would be just as useful. Or, instead of the usual trading of insults, have a panel of independent non-partisan scholars grill each candidate about his respective record and proposals, and call him out on lies and other BS. Treat the candidates equally, when one goes off question, bring him back to it. That would be far more helpful to the voters about the nature of the guys we're supposed to elect to lead out nation. But on a serious note, our country is heading down a pretty screwed up path.

It's been particularly cold in Atlanta today. I don't even have a jacket. People were laughing at me earlier because I was always cold in the classrooms with the blasts of airconditioning. Now, everyone's dressed as warmly as I am. It's especially funny seeing the people from Florida deal with the cold. Makes me feel better in perspective about my cold weather tolerance.

I'm having serious cravings for good NY pizza at this point. Even the pizza flavored garbage they serve at Amore's sounds pretty good right about now. The pizza here in Atlanta sucks. Anytime the law school has an event, they always order Papa Johns... it's not bad for it's class of pizza (clumped together with pizza hut and dominoes), but it's still the best of the worst. They have these Greek restaurants (Athens Pizza) that have half decent pizza, but still nothing compared to a good NY slice from Due Amici or Sal's. I'd give anything for a pie from Patsy's or Lombardi's at this point.

One of my friends yesterday said I'm flirty. I don't know whether to take that in a good or bad way (she meant it in a bad, albeit humorous, way). I was always the one who was never good at kickin game or flirtatious behavior. So either I've gotten more avid, or the people here at the law school have insanely low standards. Oh well... I guess it's back to being the shy guy in the corner for me.

So this is what all the warnings were about?

Everyday this week, I have spent several hours at the library. Yesterday and today, I got to the library around 4ish, and didn't leave before 10. The library is kind of nice... if you're not a law student. To me, it's a thoroughly horrible place that's over airconditioned and full of people I'm around all day. It's so boring over there that the only thing to do is work. Here in my apt, there are too many distractions. Namely the refrigerator and the tv.

This week has been annoying. I have been overloaded with work and it's getting colder outside. It's no longer consistently in the high 70's low 80's anymore. Luckily I'm not in NY, I hear at home it's in the 40's. So the south has some virtues left.

So the big assignment that's driving me nuts is for legal writing. I have to say that the research, although a bit tedious, comes across some really funny (albeit tragic), cases. One case, Doe v. Doe, is about a husband suing his wife for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress because in their 20 somewhat years of marriage, she never told him she was having an affair, and that two of their three children weren't his. Sucks to be that guy. Another case, that's not all that funny, is called Miller v. Ratner, has a woman recovering from breast cancer surgery and radiation at her boyfriend's house. Apparantly, the boyfriend was a bit of a dick, and would have his little brother call the lady in the middle of the night and call her things like, 'whore,' 'slut,' and 'one breasted woman.' Kinda screwed up. The court said these guys were total assholes, but the woman had no legal right to be there, and ruled against her.

Other than that, of course when you have a huge workload, you also find time to procrastinate (unfortunatly not nearly as much as when I was an undergrad). I waste some time popping digital bubble wrap, or reading other stuff from Newyorkish. Also can't forget the trusty New York Times, and other random places to help pop the bubble of University life.

Luckily, this week is almost over. Unfortunatly this will be a work weekend. Yuck.

Anti-Abortion Rally and Indian Food

So today was a pretty relaxed day. I didn't feel much like going out last night, so a bunch of us hung around Brian's place and watched 'Super-Size Me.' The director, Morgan Spurlock, is a complete wannabe Michael Moore. Although not as vehmently political, he tries to imitate Moore's provocative style. Pretty funny, but it got boring after a while.

Today was nice. I woke up around 9 and decided to go to the gym. Normally I always go to the gym in the late afternoon, but it felt pretty good starting the day off with a run. It definitely gave me more energy than usual.

Afterwards, I wound up going to Starbucks. What was hysterically funny is that on the way there, there were a bunch of people on the side of the road holding up signs that said, "Abortion is Murder," and "Adoption is the humane Option." Funny... leaving your unwanted child at an orphanage to either be raised by the system, or some random couple, seems very humane. The Christian right never ceases to amuse me. They have a right to their opinions on abortion... but the whole stem cell thing? Come on?

Tonight I took a few people for an Indian dinner. Went to Zyka... the most downscale atmosphere you could find, but some of the best Indian food around the Atlanta area. And as usual, after eating, I felt like my stomach was about to burst. But the naan was well worth it. There are few things in life that are as nice as a fresh from the tandoori oven naan, fluffy and dripping with melted butter. Right now after eating that much I don't know if that thought is tempting or nauseating.

So what? It's only a nuclear bomb

Yesterday, Micky sent me a link from CNN:
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/09/29/lost.bomb.ap/index.html

Scientists renew search for lost nuclear bomb
Bomber dumped H-bomb off Georgia coast 46 years ago

SAVANNAH, Georgia (AP) -- Spurred by what appear to be unusual
radiation readings offshore, the U.S. government is sending a team of 20
scientists to try to find a hydrogen bomb lost off the Georgia coast in
1958.

[text omitted]

A B-47 bomber dumped the H-bomb into the Atlantic Ocean 46
years ago after the plane collided with a fighter jet during a training flight.
Navy divers searched the shallow, murky waters near Tybee Island for nearly 10
weeks before declaring the bomb irretrievably lost.

The bomb became one of 11 "Broken Arrows" -- nuclear bombs
lost during air or sea mishaps, according to U.S. military records.

At first, I found this quite funny. I moved down here from the South, thinking that it was a nice friendly and warm place. I though the whole nuclear stockpile was a whole Pacific Northwest sort of thing? Oh well.. why should they have all the fun. I find it particularly disturbing that there have been 11 lost nuclear weapons in US history. If we can't even find our own nukes, how the hell were we expected to find Iraq's (nonexistent) stockpile?

So today wasn't a bad day. Spent a lot of time in the library finishing all my crap. Afterwards, I came back and went to Brian's place to watch the debates. It's ironic after reading about a nuclear weapon we lost 46 years ago is only now turning up, I heard both Bush and Kerry speak of how nuclear non-proliferation is one of our nations most pressing issues. I know I'll be sleeping easy with either one of these clowns in the White House.

So tonight I talked to Zahra for a little while. It's nice being back in touch. She's no longer a flight attendant, and is now going into nursing. Glad to hear that she has her life in order. Seems like ages ago since last year. For all intents and purposes, it was practically an eternity considering the change in lifestyle and career that both of us have gone through.

Time to go to sleep.