I have to leave for the immigration clinic one hour from now and it's pouring outside. I'm hoping that it clears up before then. It's about a 35 minute walk out through the financial district. Don't want to have to trudge through the rain in that.

All eight bound copies of my brief are due tomorrow. I put the finishing touches on it yesterday and took it in to get printed and bound. They told us to give a day of leeway to print that stuff out, which is why I wanted to have it all done by Monday. It only took 30 minutes, though. I think it's good I did it today. Now I'm just fighting the urge to look at it for any final mistakes. It's been a tough battle.

I'm done with that though, knock on wood and assuming I pass the ten error check. Next hurdle to over come is that oral argument. I've got a couple of weeks to work on that.

Today, I also experienced a first at GAAP. One of the clients came in and started playing the clarinet while he was waiting. It was kind of cool, actually.

Anyway, I should try to get some work done before I head out to the Immigration Clinic (hopefully not in the rain).

Idol tonight. I still hate the set up this year.

Also, Gossip Girl needs to come back. I don't know why we have to wait until March 16. Heroes is getting better and Chuck's been really good lately. I enjoy my TV Mondays.

I have not, as one might imagine, fallen off the face of the earth. Well, I guess I have in some ways. No, actually, I've spent the last few days hacking away at the rough draft of the argument section of my brief. Essentially it's the whole brief because I had to write every section except for the summary of arguments. Sounds good. I have finish this a little later than I expected, but my estimated time of completion was around 12, so I'm not that far off just printing this tree out so that I can turn it in tomorrow.

Yesterday was more or less my "Happy Writing Night" and I got most of the paper done then. I even actually turned Heroes off halfway through to focus. Yes, I was that dedicated. I did watch Chuck. It was a rerun, but it was a rerun that I had not seen before. No Gossip Girl. Apparently I also didn't get the memo that there was a presidential press conference last night. Go figure. Yesterday, I also officially started my summer job search by actually putting a couple of applications in the mail. This involved running between the Tower and the post office on Market several times. There's actually one closer than that, but I was specifically told not to go there. Not a good opportunity to experiment with that instruction. I was actually very productive last night and I think I wrote 14/18 pages of my brief (it's longer with all the additional stuff like the title page and the table of contents, but the actual writing part is about 18 pages long). That was pretty good. I was even actually productive between Enviro Law and Contracts and got another section done.

At one, I left to meet up because a group of us were going out to have lunch with our crim professor from last semester. I put my keys and my ID card in my purse. Somehow, between the Tower and the 200 building, I lost my ID. I texted Gina to tell her to pass on the message that I was running late, ran back to my apartment and did a frantic search for my ID. Nowhere to be found. Since I was running late and holding up the group at this point, I just got a visitor's pass to get into the building. Lunch was fun. We ended up eating at a Thai place that isn't Lalitas (no hate to Lalitas, but there's only so much of it you can take). I don't actually remember what hte name of it was.

Note to self: start playing golf again.

I didn't end up getting back until almost three. This meant that I had to 1) resume stressing about my ID card and 2) print out a resume and run back to the 200 building for a meeting with the man who runs the Alumni Mentorship Program. On the way up, I asked the security guards if they had seen my ID. They hadn't. At this point, I just assumed some random homeless guy was now in possession of my ID card and actually planned to get a new one. When I went to sign in at the 200 building again, the security guard told me that my ID was in the 198 building. Ran across the street to get it (yay) and ran back in time for the Alumni Mentorship meeting. That meeting went well also, and it also ran longer than I thought it would.

Got back at 4:10 and gathered my stuff together. Was supposed to meet Gina and Grace downstairs at 4:30 because we got a ride to this training at USF for the Immigration Clinic. We learned how to fill out naturalization forms. That ran until 6:30. We got back around 7. Went to the gym and got back in time for Idol.

And start trying to write my paper. Kind of. I got distracted by other things along the way.

That's about it. Tomorrow I will resume normal life, which includes doing laundry and making my apartment look half-way presentable (this is something I actually started in an attempt to not write my paper earlier, but whatever).

Also, I finished book #8.
This one as Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham. He's wrote the Hours. I had to read that for some class in UCI and I actually thought it was boring. Monica had some of his other books as well. I borrowed those and really liked those. Beyond that, what really drove me to buy this book was that it was $2 in the Borders Bargain Bin. Basically it's one big with three short stories that take place in New York (past, present, future) that are connected by Walt Whitman poems, some white bowl, characters named Simon, Lucas and some derivation of Catherine, and other stuff that I can't actually remember right now because I should probably be asleep. I don't think I've ever read a Walt Whitman poem. I don't know if having read the poems would have given me deeper insight into the stories. The first took place around the industrial era. It was very depressing and I actually liked the second and third stories more. The third one was very science fictiony, which Ithought I wasn't going to like, but actually did. It was pretty different from what I remember of his other books. It was an enjoyable read, but I think I liked the two books I borrowed from Monica more.

Now to decide what to read next. First sleep.

Today was a very long day. The only reason I'm still up is because I'm trying to get ConLaw done for Thursday. It's literally like five pages, so it's doable.

Today's my early day. I have to be in class at the unheard of hour of 8:30. I know, law school can be cruel sometimes. Somehow, I'm like 2 lectures ahead in that reading, so all is right in the world of environmental law...I think. I'm still terrified of his final.

Okay, done with Con Law.

Anyway, I watched Chuck between Enviro Law and Con Law. I'm glad that show is back. I love it. It's a good contrast to Heroes, which sometimes takes itself too serious. Also, Adam Baldwin's kind of amazing on the show. This was the dreaded 3D episode. Thus, for all of us who do not have the pleasure of having 3D glasses on hand, we got to watch a blurry episode of the show with many lame attempts at making things pop out at you. What I found more intriguing about the preview was that they show Tony Hale shout "No touching." I have to imagine this is a reference to a certain canceled Fox show (they even played the "Final Countdown" later in the episode). We get to see Charlie back from the Lost-dead. He plays what I imagine Charlie would have been like when I was in Driveshaft. Well, I guess he'd need a little more heroine and a diaper to be Driveshaft Charlie. When is Scott Bakula coming to the show? That's what I'm waiting for.

I got called on during Con Law. It caught me off guard, but the fact that I mispronounced the name of the buyer actually managed to buy me a few minutes to review my brief. That helped.

GAAP went by really quickly today. I guess when you're there for only 45 minutes, anything goes by quickly. I spent the time working with one person and ended up getting vey little accomplished. We had to fax in some form and it takes a day to process, so it's not really anyone's fault. He's coming back on Thursday and we should be able to sort that whole mess out.

I actually very last minute decided to go to the Immigration Clinic with the Asian Law Caucus tonight. I missed the training last week because I wasn't sure if it was something that 1Ls could participate in, but they said it was okay when I emailed them. The office is really far from here. It took us about 35 minutes or so to walk there, but it was a very interesting experience. It's pretty much what it sounds like. You're helping people with immigration issues. I shadowed a more experienced volunteer today because I missed training last week. It runs every two weeks, that should be a fun experience.

Got back just in time for Idol, which was really lame. I was so excited for Hollywood week and today was just an extended round of auditions, except you hardly got to hear anyone sing. Also, the suspense has been kind of ruined because the Top 36 leaked on the Internet already. Tomorrow's supposed to be group day. That's where the fun in Hollywood lies.

While watching Idol, I started to bake brownies. We're supposed to sign up for a day to bring snack in to Moot Court and it's tomorrow for me. I decided to bake brownies and bring in chips and salsa. I made the salsa last night during Gossip Girl. Brownies were for today. When I got the mix at Trader Joes a couple of weeks ago, they were out of the really good truffle brownie mix. I was stuck with the fat free one. I got it anyway because healthy brownies aren't a bad thing... The batter was really good, so when I stuck the brownies into the oven, I expected delicious brownies to come out in 25 minutes. They weren't delicious. They have absolutely no flavor. Well, actually, no. I had to use two pans to bake these brownies. My baking pan was way too big. Jeanne's weren't big enough, so I just used two of hers. One pan of brownies were a little burnt, so they have slightly more flavor than the other one. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if "burnt" is a good additional flavor.

Bottom line is that you shouldn't get the no puge brownies from Trader Joes. the salsa came out okay. It needed more salt, though.

That's about it for today. Tomorrow's the long day of classes!

I've been trying to brief a case for my Moot Court research for like two hours now and I just can't get into it. It's an interesting case about child pornography, but I just haven't been able to get into it. This is one of the big cases that I need to know, too. You might ask how that relates to identity theft, but it's actually not as exciting of an answer as you might expect.

Anyway, as part of Project: Get out of the Apartment More, I decided to go to the Asian Art Museum. Today was an ideal day to go because it was a great day, it was a weekend...and admission to the museum is free on the first Sunday of every month. That's definitely a plus. The admission isn't really that bad to begin with, but free > all. Anyway, I went to the museum around 10:30. In addition to it being free today, they were also celebrating the Year of the Ox at the museum. Thus, they had performances and arts and crafts tables. Anyway, the exhibits in the museum were really cool. The museum is huge (a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be). The collection is enormous. The Korea collection here was a lot bigger than the one at the Freer & Sackler Galleries in DC. There's an entire room that's filled with Jade. It's really cool. There were so many statues of Buddha (the law student in me had to stop myself from typing statute instead of statue). It's a really great exhibit. I'm going to have to go back at some other time. I got through two and a half rooms and realized that I had spent an hour there. Knowing that I would, at some point, have to actually start doing work, I kind of sped things up after that. I was there for another hour and a half or something, but I know I probably missed a lot. Also, I missed the exhibit on art from Afghanistan. It's been here since October and pretty much just ended. It looked really cool, too.

I was starving after that, so I grabbed a burrito and got work done. I got some work done, but I got severely distracted after having rediscovered the blog, Stuff White People Like. At least I'm done with reading through Wednesday. Probably spend all of tomorrow doing Moot Court. Fun times. I have a sneaking suspicion that there was something I was supposed to do today that I didn't, but whatever.

I didn't watch the Super Bowl, but I watched what were apparently the best commercials from it. The Conan O'Brien one has to be my favorite. I found out that there was an hour-long episode of The Office after. I missed it and will have to watch it tomorrow or something. Tomorrow's actually a big TV night. Gossip Girl, Chuck, and Heroes come back. I actually have to choose between my Josh Schwartz shows, so I'll probably be watching Chuck on Hulu in between classes on Wednesday. Yay Heroes though. Let's see if they can prove themselves against some really good episodes of Lost.

It's ridiculously late now, so I should probably go to bed.

I talked about that Britney song a couple of posts ago, but here's Fox News's take on it, just for the lulz. My other thought on this matter is that I did not catch the profanity until I read that it was there. I probably would have caught it eventually, but it's only as obvious as they're saying if you're listening for it. Maybe I just have lame observation skills, though. I don't know, here's the song.

Speaking of music, apparently Scarlett Johansson covered Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye" for the movie, He's Not that into You. I tried to look for it on YouTube to link it, but maybe it's better you didn't listen to it. Her voice isn't that bad, actually. I remember being incredibly unimpressed when I heard the single from the album she released last year. It's just a bad cover of a good song. It's streaming on Stereogum if you're that interested. If you want a good cover, TV on the Radio released a very good cover of David Bowie's "Heroes."

Also, the Bird and the Bee album, Ray Guns are Not Just the Future, was released today. It's soooo good. It's the Daily Download on Amazon today, so it's also relatively cheap.

And since I seem to like to talk about Josh Schwartz shows, apparently I missed the news that Scott Bakula is going to be playing Chuck and Ellie's dad on Chuck. I actually read about that during Contracts and I almost gasped out loud. It's good that I didn't. I'm not sure how I would explain that. Anyway, I am beyond excited about that. Not too keen on the fact that Monday's episode is going to be in 3D (people really need to stop trying to make that happen and let it remain a Disneyland novelty), but I am beyond excited. Seriously, this show's already has Tony Hale on it (who I hope they don't get rid of like they did with Masouka from Dexter). They could add someone like Lee Pace as Chuck and Ellie's long lost brother and the show would have amassed quite the collection of actors from my favorite canceled shows.

In other news, I just got back from volunteering at GAAP. I volunteer twice a week now. I like this more. I felt like I got nothing done coming in once a week on Monday mornings. Not that I do much more now since it's a lot slower on the afternoons, but it's nice to be there more than once a week. I only volunteer for like 40 minutes on Tuesdays, though, so it goes by quickly. There were fewer people in this afternoon than there usually are, so I spent all of that time making sure that all the files were in alphabetical order. Better than nothing I suppose.