Guess where I am?

That's right... back in the freakin' library. I knew it, no matter how much I hated this place last year, somehow I'd wind up right back here complaining about the hellish experience that is called law school. But it's not too bad. At least there's some sunshine through the windows. Not to mention, the readings I'm assigned (for the most part) aren't as boring as those we had last year.

So I'm officially a 2L. Last year, in the window of the student run store that sells candy and stuff was a sign that said something along the lines of "2L = too L = tool." I just thought that was hysterically funny. Even now. I wonder when that places opens again. They sold candy bars 2 for $1.00. Not bad.

So last weekend I had a pretty wild time in Vegas for Sre's bachelor party. Along with me were my old roomates from Junior year, Martin, Sre, and Suman. On top of that, we were joined by Gabe, Alex, and Chris. There was plenty of gaming, partying and reminiscing. We stayed at Mandalay Bay, which is one pretty nice spot. On Saturday afternoon, we went to the the hotel wave pool which was the perfect way to spend an afternoon in 114 degree heat. The rest of the time we had fun. That's about as much detail as I'm going to get into.

So now I'm back in ole' Atl typing away at the library. Classes seem far more interesting this year. I'm taking Islamic Law, which I'm really enjoying so far. But I have to study in this class despite whatever I've learned and read about Islamic history and whatever. It's like that Chris Rock bit about him failing Black History. "I figured I'm a black man, I'd just show up and at least get a B... wrong... failed it. I don't get it, fat people don't fail cooking... oh, that's paprika!" Hopefully I don't fall into that same trap.

I'm also taking Evidence, not so interesting, Real Estate finance, which is awsome, and International law, which I dont' have until tomorrow. This semester is looking like it will be insanely busy, but I'm not all that worried. Some of this is reading I actually wouldn't mind doing.

Another thing about law students is that just about every 2L forgets his locker combination from last year. After winter break last year, I completely forgot mine, and had to spend a good 10 minutes at my locker just trying to remember what it was. I felt like an idiot. But then I got an email from my lockermate asking me what the combination was, so I felt more normal. Of course, this year I couldn't remember for the life of me what the combo was, so I had to hang my head low and go to the receptionist to ask for it. But there were at least 10 other people I saw doing the same thing, so again, safety in numbers became my saving grace. This place really is like highschool all over again.

Fun with a scanner... plus a little retaliation

I just got a scanner today. The idea originally popped into my head a few months back when I came across a photo from my parents' engagement. There's a black and white photo of my dad and his best friend just chatting away and drinking tea. Great expressions, and I wanted to scan it and order another copy. That led to me dusting off my old scanner only to find that it no longer worked after collecting dust for about 8 years. So now I have my new one.

My sister's last blog entry was entitled, "O Brother, Where Art Thou Brains?" It was a response to my comment on her prior blog entry that the entry was entirely pointless. First off, the correct title should be "O Brother, Where Art Thy Brains?" In the old / biblical English, Thy was synonymous with "your" and "thou" synonymous with "you." Everyone knows that. She's just bitter. She's always been bitter... ever since she was a baby. See:

For those of you who know her, I'm sure you've seen her make that scowl, even nowadays while she's in the latter part of her 20's. She especially enjoys it when when she takes shots at me. See...

So here is documented proof of my struggle of 20+ years against someone with dangerous sadistic tendencies. Hopefully one day, with some therapy, we can return back to times more akin to this (except I'd no longer be a head shorter):

I have one more week of relaxing at home before heading back to the meatgrinder of school. On Friday, I'm heading to vegas to meet up with Marty, Suman, Gabe, and the rest of the crew for Sre's bachelor party. That should be an awsome time.

Anecdote: A little over four years ago, during my semester abroad in London, Marty and Sre came to visit me. We went over to Prague for a few days, then took the overnight train to Krakow, Poland. That was an awsome trip. On day, while we were in the old town square of Krakow, we came across this traditional polish band playing Polish folk tunes. We went to get a picture with them and started conversing a little. When they realized we were American students, they started their Polish folk rendition of the American National Anthem. Here's the picture:

Fun times. It's hard to believe that it's been four years since. Notice Sre in the famous Red Jacket of international fame and notoriety.

25 Chocolate Munchkins

So far, my decompression here in NY has been going very well. On Monday was the Emory in NY job fair. I had three interviews, one with the law firm I used to work for. I think they went fairly well. It's just a little strange to be interviewing for the following summer before the school year has even begun.

Today I hung around in Brooklyn with Fader. Normally, when we hang around, we usually get Pizza from this Ft. Greene pizzaria called "Not Ray's Pizza." It has this anti-Ray's theme. For anyone who is familiar with Manhattan, there are tons of "Famous Original Ray's" and "Ray Bari" pizza places around (they all suck). This quaint Brooklyn pizza place prides itself on not being one of those places. Their take out menu has charicatures of Ray Liotta and Ray Charles with big "X"'s through them. Today, we had a craving for something sweet after the pizza, so we decided on Dunkin Donuts, specifically, munchkins.

I don't think I've ever bought munchkins just to eat. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever actually bought munchkins before. Every time I"ve had them, they've been a snack provided for some meeting or whatever, most often by a school or teacher. So fader and I were driving over to DD's, and we needed to decide what flavor(s) to get. We figured chocolate without issue, but for some reason, neither of us wanted to have any other flavor. Every time munchkins are provided for us in a group of any sort, people always sift through the batch and claim the chocolate ones first. That always annoyed me because it meant less chocolate for me. I'd usually leave one or two chocolate ones in the box because I felt bad taking the last ones for myself. This was perfect. No diversity, no 'variety,' just the good stuff.

Fader and I thought it was funny as hell. When I ordered the 25 munchkins, all chocolate, the guy behind the counter gave me a weird look and said, "that's a lot of chocolate." But it was all good. Nobody likes the other ones. The jelly ones aren't bad, but there's not enough jelly in them. The cinnamon ones suck and nobody likes them. The regular glazed and powdered ones are just plain bad.

It's kind of like having a party and inviting all of your multicultural and multiethnic friends along just for the sake of having variety, but in reality, you only want to talk to certain ones you like. But in that box of donut hole treats, there was no political correctness or multiculturalism. Only sweet chocolate goodness.

Decompression

I'm finally back in NY. It was funny, I went to Jamatkhana today and saw a good family friend and her two adorable little kids. She asked when I got back in town. For some reason, I couldn't remember that I only got in yesterday. It felt like I've been here longer. That's a good thing, I want to feel like I was home as long as possible before school starts again.

So last Saturday, I had a small get together to christen my new apartment (despite the fact that I've been living there for about 3 months already). Invited some friends over to hang around, throw snap-its off my balcony and just enjoy eachother's company. Got to catch up with some folks and really relax. Justin's family was in town, so he brought his younger sister to the party. I hadn't really seen her since highschool. That's one of the quirks about still being friends with someone 20 years after meeting them, you get to experience funny little reunions like that.

Here are some pictures:

Katrina and Justin. I can't remember what we were all laughing about. Just that it was hilarious.

Danielle, Katrina and Justin.

Colleen and Adam.

So last weeks small get together was really fun. I can't believe how the summer is almost over. It's blown by way to quickly. And as usual, it's had its ups and downs. I just hope the coming year will be a good one. Thinking back, I really didn't do all that much this summer. I interned at a small law practice, I watched a lot of Law & Order (both regular and SVU), enjoyed the scenery in Georgia, and hung around here and there. Nothing too exciting, very routine. In a nutshell, this is exactly what my summer looked like:

Wow, I need to get out more.

Stormclouds

One of the perks of living on the 19th floor of a highrise building in an area that doesn't have many other tall buildings around is that there is a phenomenal view. During the evenings, the setting sun floods my apartment with an orange glow that's very peaceful. But when the weather is not so nice and thunderstorms blow through, the show from my apartment is amazing. The number of lightning strikes you could see is breathtaking.

There's something oddly alluring about lightning storms. I've always had a fascination of watching them ever since I was a kid. I remember a few years back, I was looking through one of the windows of my bedroom. Our house in Long Island is located next to a middle school, and this window semi overlooks the sports fields. A lightning storm blew through, and watching bolt after bolt strike was just amazing. Combined with the force of the winds and the torrential rain, it was like watching nature get all its anger out.

These last few days have had several lighting storms. Every day I've been able to see these magnificant events. Personally, when I get annoyed or angry about something, a private and semi-violent outburst definitely helps me. I like punching the side of the mattress or a couch cushion. If only I had a punching bag in my apartment.

For some reason, I've been feeling really crappy lately. I wish I could have spent more time at home this summer. But work kept me here living an extremely simple lifestyle, not doing too much, more or less keeping to myself. So now the stormclouds of my life are accumulating, and I feel like it's going to pour pretty soon with a few lightning strikes here and there. Small things and quirks that people have that normally bother me, I almost always overlook. Lately, I've been finding myself not so easily dismissing these little things. I still control myself completely, but little things have been pissing me off lately. I want to lash out at almost everyone, but I restrain myself because I don't want to cause any damage.

At my exit interview the other day, my boss gave me some constructive criticism that kind of stuck. He said that I'm affraid to offend people and that I take no for an answer a little too frequently when dealing with folks. It's true. Thinking back , I put up with an enormous amount of BS with a huge number of people I have dealt with in the past. The amount of anger I swallowed so as to not fully upset them or to scare them. Sometimes I wonder whether restraining my words and thoughts has done more harm or good in the long run.

World Series of Gluttony

Earlier this week, I had the day off from work. So while I was waiting for the cable man to arrive and fix my connection, I was flipping channels and came across ESPN's broadcast of the World Series of Competitive Eating. In other words, a bunch of fat American guys and one or two diminutive yet exceedingly insane Asian guys stuffing their faces with as much food as possible. It was very very strange... almost like watching one of those extraordinarily crappy reality shows. You know it's crap, yet you're drawn into watching it.

Among the usual suspects there were Takeru Kobayashi, Sonya (The Black Widow) Thomas (She and Kobayashi are the two crazy Asians), "Cookie" Jarvis, and the rest of the fat cats. You can read a lot more about the event here.

The strangest thing about this 'sporting' event is that the commentators were taking it seriously. I know that these sports commentators must have been forcing themselves to speak with straight faces. There's no way in hell they could not see humor in the idiocy of the entire thing. For example, from the article linked above:

Fans of competitive eating know the keys to victory include such critical components as jaw strength, hand speed and tummy capacity. But when a "gustatory gladiator" (as Shea calls them) such as Kobayashi is at work, the particulars of his craft recede in the greater glory of his sense of the moment.

You've got to be kidding me. I know that other 'sports' that have become popular on ESPN are not all that traditional, and are quite literally stretching the definition of the word 'sport.' Case in point is the World Series of Poker, of which I admit I am an avid fan. But there's nothing idiotic about Poker, with the bluffing strategies, the stresses you know the contenders are feeling (which most of us have felt on a far smaller level when we go all in during our $5 or $10 buy in games), and the sheer suspense aspect of it all. Even autosports carries with it the possibility of crashes, the need for extremely skilled drivers, and most simply, super high speeds. But competitive eating? I honestly believe that everyone watches it for the sheer irony and strangeness of it all. Quite different from the 'sports' mentioned above.

The one thing that weirds me out about Kobayashi and Thomas is that they're small people. Kobayashi put away something like 13 lbs of spaghetti. Hell, I eat less than 6 ounces of spaghetti in one meal and my pants start to feel tight. Yet this loon is smaller than I am and weighs only 140 lbs. How the hell does he do that? At the Nathan's 4th of July hot dog eating contest, the dude has put away between 48 and 53 hot dogs consistently for the past several years. Yet year to year, he's still the same small crazy dude. Either he's bulemic or just plain unhuman.

Leave it to the Japanese to take a good old American idea, make it better, take it over, and wind up outdoing the Americans. Happened with the automobile industry and technology, and now, the one thing we thought he had monopolized, being gluttonous, has been taken away by the Japanese... and that without the added obesity problem that almost always goes with it.