austin update

i lived through a hurricane!

here are some interesting articles about some things completely unrelated to hurricanes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/opinion/31kristof.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

i'm in a coffeeshop in austin and i just read them.

ok so... hurricane dolly came and threw down some havoc in the greater mcallen area. there was flooding (not much where i was living, but not none), power outages, trees and wires down, roofs being torn down houses, etc. it didn't hit hidalgo county as hard as it hit SPI and everything (that's what was in the news) but it still hit pretty hard. it sucked, but it's not too interesting to write about... just imagine an incredibly loud windy dark storm that lasts for a long time and everyone is calling you over. also, one of our interns, MJ, lives near SPI and she hasn't been returning anyone's phone calls or anything and that is WORRISOME. it is actually pretty bad, but i don't know what to do about it.

anyway hurricane is boring to write about. i'm done with my internship, it was a great summer. i'm so glad i came down here instead of stayed up in new york or went to do anything else. i learned a lot and it was pretty incredible, and everyone i worked with was so extra-awesome that i could hardly believe my good luck. corinna, abner, jaime, moira, laura, yessica, jayne, kyle, MJ, GENEVIEVE, ann... i'm going to miss everyone a lot! but i'm excited to get back up to the east coast and see all my friends. and also go to some awesome job interviews. today i interviewed for MADRE, a women's civil rights organization that works globally and with the UN a lot. I'd really like that. Tomorrow i'm interviewing with Amnesty International, and in the next few weeks I'll be interviewing with the Global Workers Justice Alliance, CONNECT, and a civil rights firm called Lansner and Kubitschek. there's a few more organizations i want to send my resume out to as well. i'm looking for a fall internship that won't be super stressful but that i can hopefully segue into a cool summer internship. we'll see though.

so now i'm up in austin with toni and gino and patrick. corinna and the work gang were up here as well but they left yesterday. so weird - corinna's best friend is patrick's brother, we realized that the other day. we hung out with him (chris) and his friend (christian) yesterday, they made us dinner. it was delicious. christian, i believe, has a crush on toni, which is extra cute. he wants us to go out tonight but i can't... toni and gino aren't going to either. we just discussed it. i think he's going to be getting an upsetting text message in a moment, from toni, from my phone, so taht will be confusing maybe. but i have to be prepped for my phone interview tomorrow.

also it's annoying, apparently for the student organizations i'm part of we're supposed to have a schedule of events completed and sent in by tomorrow. i have not even thought about these organizations for one second while i've been up here, because it's the friggen summer and i'm busy and the other people in the organizations are in new jersey, new york, or in one case, zimbabwe. but whatever.

so there's your update, mr. postman. check out some pictures:

hello dolly

living at laura's

well i'm not homeless - laura was nice enough to extend her hospitality to genevieve, MJ and I. She has a two bedroom apartment in McAllen that is really nice - it's small but she has such good taste that it is full of nice things. Of course, she's moving at the end of July so most of her things are packed up. She hasn't got internet though - right now I'm sitting outside on her small deck stealing wireless from some hapless Texan. She told me her old roommate used to be able to get a wireless signal sometimes, but today was the first day it worked for me. Good thing too, because everyone is gone today and I wanted to work on some job applications and get them sent out. Which I did.

Lets see what's been going on. Yesterday was the big NO BORDER WALL rally and protest. It was really great - they had a forum a few weeks ago that I thought would be tough to top in terms of attendance and enthusiasm, but yesterday evening definitely took the cake. They had speakers first, in an auditorium at UT Pan-Am, who spoke about the issues everyone has heard before - immigration, environment, etc - and then Emily, the lawyer whose house Genevieve and I stayed in for a week or so, spoke about the pending lawsuits against the government right now. Specifically DHS, since they haven't been obeying their court order to consult with landowners about buying thier land, they've basically been strongarming peope into giving up property. She said she doesn't expect to win but she want to draw attention to what is going on here. Then a student group from the University spoke, and the girl in charge got everyone fired up, and a few minutes later we marched on the courthouse. Picket signs and all. It was very cool - we marched down a length of the highway that the police had blocked off for us, and the other side of the highway had people beeping and waving, and storeowners were coming out of their stores to cheer us on. I think there were something like 600 people or so. It doesn't seem like a lot if you compare it to the amount of people who have written letters to their congresspeople in support of th border wall, but most of those people don't live - have never lived and will never live - in the Rio Grande Valley, and don't really understand what a terrible impact a border wall will have. In terms of economic loss, environmental impact, human fatalities... I don't think anyone in their right mind could support the border wall if they knew what havoc it will wreak down here.

So that was a lot of fun, and Genevieve took a lot of pictures, which I'll wrangle out of her at a later date. She's at work now so I can't harass her about it at this moment.

We went up to Austin last week and stayed with Gino. It was great! I think the weather is just about as hot in Austin as down here, but there are a lot more places to swim and cool off up there than down here. The first day we were there we swam in a river, the next day in Gino's pool, and the last day we went to a place called Hamilton Pool - one of the most gorgeous natural formations i've ever seen in my life. It was absolutely incredible - for the first hour or so that we were there I din't even want to swim, I just wanted to look at it. I got more tan in those few days than I have been in the past few years of my life, I think. I really love Austin. We went to a party there on Saturday and everyone was so incredibly nice and welcoming... even to me, and I am about the most shy and boring person alive. I actually ended up just falling asleep in a hammock for something like five hours. During the party. While fireworks were being set off not 10 feet from where I was. (See, I'm boring.) Patrick was there for a bit but he headed off after a few hours, I think to try and patch things up with his boyfriend (which didn't end up working, since the next day he told me they were no longer seeing each other). And Gino of course was there, he's the one who brought us, and Genevieve, but she left early to go see another friend of hers who lives in Austin, and to watch the fireworks over the lake. Like I said, I missed most of the fireworks in my area because I was sleeping. I wish I had a hammock at home, they're really great. The last day of Austin was kind of ruined for me for stupid reasons, and I was so upset at the time that I left my phone charger up there like a moron, so now in addition to not having internet i also haven't got any battery in my phone. I've been getting a lot of reading done, basically. Anyway though, I'm pretty excited to get back up to Austin at the end of July for a week - and Nick has been saying he might be able to come down as well! (Patrick is SUPER EXCITED about that, hahaha). So it will be me, Toni, Patrick, Nick, and Gino - some of my best friends from before lawschool sucked my life away. If only my Belmar friends were coming as well, it would be like a 24-hour party.

I know there's been more stuff that's happened in the past three weeks or whatever it's been since I've updated, but I'm getting hot out here and I want to go back inside where there is no internet, but I can read more. I'm in the middle of 'Eiger Dreams' and 'Persian Fire,' two books which John mailed me because he's the best. They're both awesome.

i'm almost a homeless person!

so the dorm we've been living in, casa de colores, with bathrooms like something out of martha stewarts worst nightmares, was built a few years ago by a bunch of orthodox jewish teen volunteers at proyecto azteca. my theory is that it was like a training camp for them before heading off to israel to build jewish settlements (this theory has been confirmed by jaime). before casa de colores was built, most volunteers apparently would live with host families, to get the real south texan experience, but i guess the jewish kids were real masochists and wanted to build a horrible little building that doesn't conform to any fire or safety hazard codes in anywhere in the country, or anywhere in any country, barring possibly some places in africa or siberia or what have you. places which, i think in general, don't have fire codes, is what i'm trying to get across. because this place doesn't. have them, i mean.

so we're living in casa de colores, it's not THAT bad because there's only three of us (another intern, MJ, moved in on monday - she's from Rutgers Newark too which is a pretty crazy coincidence if you ask me!) and it has two giant bedrooms with 6 bunkbeds each, so it has enough room, at least, even though it hasn't got enough of many other things (hot water, for example). but we've been told ever since the beginning, that at some point over the summer the jewish kids would return because there is a group that volunteers every summer. today we got the details: on saturday, two adults are going to arrive, a guy and a lady. then on sunday, 9 girls are going to arrive (that makes 10 ladies incoming to CDC) and 7 dudes (that makes 8 incoming dudes). also two other women are going to arrive, but they are super orthodox and need seperate sleeping quarters entirely. I'm not sure why, or how they expect that to happen - genevieve mentioned that they were planning on sleeping in the STCRP office. which is absolutely ridiculous, we have no idea who these women are they can't be sleeping in a law office with client files and things, also we WORK here. also they don't want to pay for any of this.

so like i said, girls room & guys room have 6 bunk beds each. meaning 12 beds, meaning that since there's 10 women incoming and there's already three of us here, there aren't enough beds for girls. guys room will have 4 extra beds, but guys and girls apparently can't sleep together in the same room. so genevieve, MJ and i are basically in a lot of trouble.

laura said it's possible that we could move in with her, but she isn't sure yet because she's trying to get a new place to live. Jayne said her landlord/roommate has two spare rooms, which we might be able to move into. Ann at proyecto azteca has a spare room, but Sr. Moira uses it as an office so we're not sure if that will pan out. so if worse comes to worst, genevieve, MJ and I may actually end up having to sleep at STCRP! i know i just gave reasons for the two other ladies not to sleep here, but different rules apply to us, i think, for many reasons e.g. we are not strangers, we work here, we are allowed to look at client files anyway, we spend everyday here as it is, etc. STCRP has a bathroom with a shower, and it has an oven and a microwave and a refrigerator - actually the bathroom is better than the CDC bathroom so it might not be all that bad - but seriously, if i end up sleeping and working in the same place, i will literally never go outside, and i will return to new jersey white as a ghost as if i had been living in a cave. there's more i want to write about too but i'm on my lunch break trying to eat and i can't type and eat at the same time.

real quick: genevieve and i went to this place 'la mexicana dos' which was really good, and i got these nachos called 'panchos' that were DELICIOUS, but i couldn't eat them all because it was too much and they were absolutely covered with jalapenos. so i brought them home but seriously, two day old microwaved nachos covered in refried beans and guacamole aren't as good as you might think. i was once of the opinion that anything microwaved will taste good, provided it's greasy enough, but i have been proven wrong. so wrong.

oh also, going to mexico tonight!! and we went to a drive-in movie theatre yesterday and it was FANTASTIC!!

oh no oh no oh no oh no

Genevieve and I are going to be house-sitting for Corinna's friend Emily for a few days, which couldn't have come at a better time BECAUSE I JUST SAW A ROACH IN THE DORM WTF.

Fucker was like the size of a cocker spaniel or a cat or at least a large cigar. This is not like spiders which are only around to be pleasant and maybe sometimes bite but it is a friendly misunderstanding, these little bastards take orders from their insect overlords and they are out for blood. Plus i moved the garbage can it ran behind and it's not there anymore which also means it can turn invisible! This is a threat that we can't handle!!

They want my food, they want my clothes, they want to cut off my skin and wear it and assimilate into human society, they want to run up my pantleg and freak me the fuck out. what the fuck man what the fuck! john said i should buy a BB gun and shoot at it but that will just make it stronger god damn it a branch just tapped on the window and i about fell out of my chair this is turning into teh blair witch project. i'm sorry everyone i'm sorry i did this it serves me right coming to texas



update: we killed it, genevieve is smart and she wrapped her boots in plastic bags and we saw it come out and i screamed and we both went at it with smashing and it got smeared all over. ugggghhhh. genevieve said that i was exaggerating, it wasn't the size of the remote control. and she also told me this isn't like men in black, or gangland, where if we kill one of them they kill one of us. so that's a relief.

another week in texas.

I'm not sure where to start. A lot has happened. Last weekend Genevieve and I wanted to take a trip somewhere fun, so on Sunday we decided on a cactus garden nearby here that she found on the internet. We drove around for a while trying to find it - driving around lost has become a favorite pastime of ours - and when we eventually did, it seemed to be closed. Genevieve called the number listed on their website, and an irritable old man answered, informing us that the cactus garden is no longer open to the public unless we are willing to buy $45 dollars worth of cactus plants. He also came outside to inform us that we were not allowed to take pictures. We obviously weren't going to pay so much money to see some dumb succulents, so we ran across the road and took pictures from there.

Ha ha! Take that, cactus man! Also, across there street were two stores, the only stores for a long way that we could see, and they both happened to be dollar stores. Dollar General and Family Dollar, or something like that.

Next time I have a dollar I'm gonna do some comparative shopping.

Anyway, in the parking lot of Dollar General, we met a woman who told us that if we are looking for something fun to do, we could go to the wildlife preserve on the border - the Santa Ana Wildlife Preserve. She told us how to reach it, and that we would be able to see the river (the Rio Grande) depending on which trail we took. So we hopped in the car and away we drove. We reached it probably within 20 minutes or so. On the way we got to see the levees that we've been hearing so much about.

They're softly swelling mounded up hills of dirt; unimpressive but I'm sure they do their job in holding the water back - or at least they would, if they were properly maintained (more about that below!). Anyway, we get to the wildlife preserve and the girl on duty told us that there were three different trails: a half-mile, a mile, and two miles. She recommended the half-mile, but when we looked over the map the only one which came in view of the river was the two mile one. So, we two girls, wearing nothing but dresses, flip-flops, bug spray and sunscreen, embarked on a two-mile trek through the texas wilderness to see the Rio Grande.
Spoiler Alert!

(We see it.)

It was really a good walk - we saw a lot of nice plants and some crazy looking birds, and there was a big metal tower we could climb up for a fantastic view.

However, at one point the trail we decided on wound its way between several lakes, which, it being pretty dry in texas around now, were fairly low and fairly stagnant. Which means bugs. To add to the fun, that stretch of trail was the only bit which wasn't in the shade - no trees for about 100 yards, so we weren't the happiest people in texas by the time we reached the end. But it was a nice trail and altogether I enjoyed it.

We returned home to shower and change, and then we decided to find somewhere to eat. Genevieve found a salsa bar online, which we drove around and failed to find. I called first Corinna and then Jaime to see if either of them knew where it is; neither of them did so we found somewhere else to eat instead. The ubiquitous mexican food down here is, unsurprisingly, very good.

After dinner we came home again, and I believe we watched the first Bourne movie that night.

Work has been pretty good - Jayne, one of the other interns, is super nice, and Kyle, who arrived this week, is also really great. Jaime, Corinna, and Sr. Moira are all terrific as well.

It's really nice to go in - the building in which I live is about 20 feet away from the building in which I work so the commute is pretty good, and everyone at work is so friendly that it makes me happy to go in. Abner, who was the director, is leaving, so he is trying to get the cases still open wrapped up, and those are what the other interns and I are working on. Kyle, Jayne and I are all working out of the room which used to be Abner's office, so we have a cozy little setup.

This week was interesting, but it was pretty long. We went out for lunch a few times, which broke up the time a bit, but it was still at least 6 straight hours of research everyday, all day. On Friday we went out to a place called The Blue Onion. It was decided on for my sake - I think everyone is starting to pity me for my lack of choices at Mexican places (even though I don't mind eating beans and rice - it's delicious), and this place had more vegetarian options. Earlier in the day, Jayne had told us this story she saw on TV about a spring break vacationer who had been staying in Matamoros - the Mexican town right across the border - in the 80s, and had been kidnapped by drug dealers and had his brain eaten and his spine turned into a necklace. Apparently the spine necklace was supposed to allow them to evade the detection of the police. I'm not sure if I can think of anything which seems more specifically designed to attract the police, but I'm not sure how rational these people were. Jaime said he remembered when it happened, and he seemed to think it had been a cult, or satanists. Regardless, we were assured that Mexico is extremely safe nowadays, and there are police in place specifically to safeguard tourists since tourism is pretty profitable for the Mexican towns.

Jaime also told us this story involving a woman who had hired a hitman to kill her daughter's ex-boyfriend. Only, instead of 'kill,' Jaime said 'whack off.' So, she hired a man to whack off her daughter's ex-boyfriend. I'm not sure why he chose those particular words, but we all cracked up, and had to explain why. Then Abner told us a similar story about someone using the term 'money-shot' in a completely bizarre context on CNN. I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time. It was a really good lunch.

Meanwhile, outside of work, Genevieve and I have been trying to find things to do. Wednesday night was ladies' night at a local club, so we went to check it out. We invited Jayne and Kyle but they were too tired to make it. We went out for pizza, and then, surprisingly, Genevieve and I got lost getting to the club! We found it eventually though, and got in. The club had about 7 bars, all in different themed rooms, and only a few were open - the karaoke bar, the salsa bar, and the hiphop bar. The drinks were only a quarter, so I got down to business. Genevieve, as the designated driver (and a minor), wasn't drinking. She got out on the dance floor and danced with a guy named Mike, who refused to believe she is single. She also sang karaoke! I was impressed and a little jealous; I could never get up on stage like that. It was a lot of fun. I can't really find the words to describe this place accurately - it's kind of like a large dirty warehouse that's been retrofitted to cram these bars in. It actually kind of reminded me of the dark weird videogame arcades on the beach in Seaside. It was kind of awkward and kind of depressing - my favourite sort of situation! I loved it.

Genevieve and I have also been pretty active in the No Border Wall group Sr. Moira has been taking us to. We spoke in front of the commissioner's court of Hidalgo County (and it was on TV!) I spoke about the company, Dannenbaum, that the county has contracted with to build the levee-walls. There's been a lot of scandals and corruption within this company and in their dealings with other towns, and I wanted to bring it up in front of the Commissioners and publicly question why they would choose that company to build the walls. And Genevieve spoke about the levee walls themselves, and how much work is involved in building the. She actually read the Army Corps of Engineers manual on building retaining levees, and used that information in the points she made. It sounded so good! She brought up the fact that even if the levees could be built within the time period that the IBWC is allotting, there's no reason to build them during hurricane season.

Actually I should probably background this a bit. There are already levees in place in Hidalgo county, but most of them of extremely old - I think someone said that they are over a hundred years old in some places. This area is basically a massive flood plain - it's flat for miles and miles, and with the Rio Grande right here, any raise in the water level could be disastrous. Katrina was pointed right at this area in Texas before she diverted course, and a hurricane like that - any hurricane at all in fact, with the levees as they are, could possibly swamp this are and cause a great deal more damage here than Katrina did in New Orleans. I mean greater in terms of land area, I'm not sure what the cost in lives would be. Recently Hidalgo County passed a motion to obtain a bond for $100 million dollars to fix the levees. And, as everyone down here is very aware, there is the Secure Fence Act which calls for a Fence to be built along the border. There is a huge amount of opposition to the fence in this area, for a huge number of reasons. Not only in this area, but all along the entire Mexican border, there is a lot of people working together to try and prevent the fence from being built. But in Hidalgo County, Judge Salinas has made a deal to try and kill two birds with one stone - instead of building a fence, he wants to build a retaining levee wall. That might sound like a good idea, until you take into account a multitude of side effects this wall will have. Environmentally, it will split the valley in half, disrupting the living patterns of the animals in this ecosystem. The eco-tourism down here is a multi-million dollar business, since there are endangered birds and animals that live here and nowhere else in the world. The wall will split their habitat in half. But in terms of human lives, the levee wall issue is huge, simply because of the timing they've chosen to build it. I'm against building a fence or a wall, personally. But this levee wall issue isn't a political question I'm trying to argue - it's simply the issue that to build the levee wall, they have to cut the already existing levees in half lengthwise and insert a wall into them. It's hurricane season now, and it will be for the next few months. If a hurricane blows in while there is construction being done, not to strengthen the levees but to cut into them, who knows what the cost in lives and property will be. A levee wall is not the same as simply strengthening the levees. It's significantly weakening them - the end result might improve their strength, but there's a great risk involved in undertaking this construction during hurricane season.

But I digress. Genevieve and I were on TV! You can read what we said here(mine) and here (hers)! A reporter interviewed me! :D

Well, I've typed a lot, and I still have a lot of work to do. We went out to see Sex and the City last night - all four of us interns, as well as Corinna, her boyfriend, and a lot of other public interest lawyers and legal interns from this area. The movie was pretty cheesy, but it was funny and it was fun to meet all those people at the pre-party they had. However, there's another party tonight I won't be able to make, since I want to get a headstart on my work for this upcoming week, and I've already wasted an hour typing all of this up.

So, hopefully I'll update again during the week sometime, but otherwise it won't be til next weekend.

You can see all my Texas pictures (so far) here:

tejas

NOW IM IN TEXAS

well i haven't updated this in a while. i'm done with my first year of lawschool, and i've started to get grades back in - not as good as i hoped, but i supposed with the amount of work i put in compared to other people, i can't really be surprised. i think i'm going to be losing my merit scholarship though... by .05 points. which really sucks a lot. but i guess if i'm in debt by a hundred thousand bucks by the time i'm out, another eight thousand won't kill me.

and now i'm in texas. what an adventure it was even to get here, let alone work here. like my new roommate just said, 'it's basically a foreign country.' but let me start at the beginning.

i was planning to start work the week after write-on was over - i didn't participate in write-on, i bought a packet but i didn't end up doing it, i had too much other stuff to work on. unfortunately, though, my NJClass loan for the summer didn't come through, because they didn't process it until later, and by that time the school year was out and they don't award loans after the close of the year. so i thought about my options, and john suggested that i get a credit card. that was the best option, so i did that, and i bought my plane ticket on it. then i spent all of the two weeks i had after finals just hanging out - spending time with my mom and with john, and i had a barbecue to which something like 20 people came. that was pretty awesome, except for the end of the night when everyone was stupid drunk and weirdness started up.

but anyway, i bought my plane ticket and i got here last tuesday, the 27th. today is saturday, the 31st of may, so i've been here 5 days. i've been working, and work is awesome. i signed a disclaimer not to say specifics about what i'm working on precisely, so i can't do that. however, i can link to some interesting articles about what the organization at which i'm working (South Texas Civil Rights Project) is doing, like this for example: http://www.texascivilrightsproject.org/newspub/clip_050629_protest_human_trafficking.html
so check that out if you're interested.

but anyway, down here is great! it's hot but not humid so i can totally deal with it. i'm living in a small dorm (way nicer than the dorms in newark) with another girl, genevieve, who is really awesome and sweet. she works for another organization on this compound, proyecto azteca, which builds low income housing like habitat for humanity. i also work with another intern named jayne who is extremely nice. and working at STCRP are corinna (the attorney), jaime, laura, and sr. moira. Abner, the previous attorney, is not going to be working there anymore, so i think they're hiring another attorney. the most interesting thing, in my opinion, that STCRP does is the VAWA stuff - violence against women act. it's really cool, but i don't really feel like typing about it.

what i do feel like typing about is the border wall! i went to a meeting about it recently and it was super informative - i don't know much about it before but i am learning! apparently there is corruption scandals going on, with the engineering firm they're hired to figure out the hyrdaulics, it has stolen money in the past and sent it to mexico where it disappeared in shell corporations! but the company is under investigation from the FBI because of bribing officials for construction contracts. and some of the problems with the border wall that i had never considered have to do with the engineering aspects - they want to build it right on top of (or replace) these old levees that desperately need to be repaired - hidalgo county is in danger of major flooding if a hurricane comes through. there are levees in place that are extremely old and it's been estimated that it would be something like $225 million to fix them, however DHS is allocating funding instead to building walls that they are calling 'levee walls,' which will mostly just reflect water back onto the mexican side, damaging and probably killing people over there, while not doing much over here to protect from flooding.

the wall also goes through a major wildlife preserve corridor and would probably ruin the eco-tourism that brings in millions of dollars in this part of texas, as well as screwing tons of people out of their property and funneling the drug traffic through cities and housing developments instead of through relatively unoccupied desert and rural areas, and then the obvious immigrants' rights issues, and finally, what i found most interesting, weirdly enough - the structural and engineering problems inherent in building a border wall that is also a levee, since this is part of an area that (at this point) would be victimized by major flooding if a hurricane came through.

there's going to be a forum on june 26th, flyering in public parks on july 4th, and on july 12th they're planning a huge ralley in a park near here called 'anchor park'. the leaders are also planning a possible bus trip to austin to demonstrate in front of the capital - even though it's a federal issue (they just want the media attention) and if that goes well, a possible trip up to washington. pretty exciting.

i took a lot of that information out of an email i wrote to toni, hahaha. but i really am enjoying it down here. last night genevieve and i watched 'coyote ugly' and we went to the mall and we went to a tacquieria and we ate ice cream and i bought a dress! (not in that order). then today genevieve went to help with construction - i didn't do that because i slept until 11:30. and since then i've been working on school stuff, like my resume and stuff. so i haven't even gone outside... but she is looking online now to find interesting stuff to do around here so maybe i'll be outside tomorrow. i really want to visit the frontiera audobon; that's where we had the meeting about the wall and it was beautiful. also there are big fucking jumping spiders living here, i've killed a bunch already.

and ... what else... there's wild dogs, and it's really beautiful here with the palm trees, and a guy named rogelio was here for a while but he left, and i think later a lot of high school girls are going to be living here so genevieve and i might have to find somewhere else to live, and genevieve wants to go salsa dancing so if she does that and i go i will get super drunk (and not dance), and i want to go to austin and visit gino and patrick, and i dont know what else but i'm having fun!!

i hate ADR

it is such a boring throwaway class. i feel like i'm in undergrad, in a sociology class. some groups in class are going to be presenting ADR to civ pro classes, so they're practicing today... so it is a bunch of students presenting material that we kind of know, but never really learned in the first place, because no one does any of the reading. at least i don't. usually in this class i read for con law, but not today.
i had a bad time yesterday. all i want to do is sleep anymore, and even when i'm awake i wish i were asleep. law school has made me hate thinking, reading, writing, and researching. not that i was a huge fan of any of those things to begin with. i'm glad spring is coming; i can't deal with the dark and cold anymore, on top of the frustration. i hardly can go outside at all - not only is it dark and cold but also it's newark, and newark is unsafe. i can't wait to move to texas for the summer. actually it's going to be blisteringly hot and i have no idea about how safe it will be, so i will probably be singing a different tune once that starts. but we'll see.
jimmy is touring with genghis tron! april 1st... i have to buy tickets soon, he says it's selling out and he doesn't know if he can guestlist me. its a show with converge and some other tough guy bands, which i'm not really into, but it will be totally worth it to see jimmy again!

spring break is over...

...so i've been here for 3/4 of a school year and i'm still getting job offers in my email. i should take my resume off of those job hunting sites but i don't remember what my password is, and i don't feel like taking the three seconds to have it reset. i just forward them along to other people anyway. i actually have a job now - for the school year (in the library) and over the summer (texas). I'm a little worried about the texas job - it's going to be really interesting, it's definitely going to be a really good experience, but it's going to be SO HOT and so far away from everything else.


the skokos, sash and i went to see the pogues show on sunday - pogues, will e whitmore, and billy bragg. it was such an amazing show. i love will whitmore and i LOVE billy bragg- sash said i was rapt the whole time they were playing. before the pogues came on, of course the clash was playing really loudly, and sash and i had the idea to have a 'stand in the dark and listen to the clash' party. i really like the idea, except i think it should probably be a 'sit in the dark and listen to the clash party' just because standing is so tedious. and because i have a lot of experience at sitting in the dark and listening to the clash - i'm basically a pro.


every time it's mentioned how often everyone here worked as paralegals, or in law firms, or doing legal work before starting law school, i get more convinced i am in the wrong place. i mean, law school, but NEWARK is just so BORING...

Billy Bragg and Kate Nash covering the Shangri-Las:



Billy Bragg singing "The World Turned Upside Down":



Will Whitmore - One Man's Shame



Will Whitmore - Pine Box
(i yelled for it and he said he might not play it because it is slow and sad, but he played it anyway, which is terrific because it is an amazing song!):