So I think it's about time to get off of my high horse and accept and embrace the fact that I like reading Science Fiction and Fantasy. I've spent too much time in those aisles of bookstores the last few years looking for Neil Gaiman books to deny it at that point...maybe it's because he's just so crazy awesome. I've started going through the Terry Pratchett Discworld series. Yeah. I think it's about time to just give in. Maybe I'll even get around to reading Ender's Game and Asimov books.

Chris, Gianni and I are trying to see if we can read 52 books this year. I've read two - Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Steig Larsson) and Soul Music (Terry Pratchett). Maybe accepting this genre into my life will allow me to actually reach this book goal this year. Maybe.

I've amended my 2010 resolutions (did I have any to begin with?) to include reading all of Jane Austen's works. I think I've gone through life for too long without having done this. It's also a task slightly more achievable for me than the 50 book challenge. (I must say I did a pretty good job on that last year, though.) I've only read Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma. I started reading Persuasion on my iPhone (let's go public domain books). Probably will revisit the ones I have read because it's been a while. Though, maybe I'll spice things up a bit and read Pride Prejudice and Zombies instead of the original. That's right. I'll go there.

There was an ice cream social on campus today. Hastings throws them every one in a while. Basically it means that a bunch of law students get to live out every five year old's dream and have ice cream for a meal. You might think it's a little juvenile but for stressed out law students, they are actually kind of amazing.

Anyway, I should work on my Trademark Prosecution paper for a bit so I can go to bed.

I've been in Southern California for the last few days. Been enjoying not having to wear a suit to work every day and being able to sleep in a little.

Went to see a show at the Troubadour a couple of days ago. (will blog about that later). Going to Disneyland today with Crasher and James because it's Crasher's birthday (happy birthday, will blog about D-Land later). Watched the Confederations Cup finale a couple of days ago. Pretty intense game. Well played on both sides. It was fun to watch US lead Brazil 2-0 for almost half of the game.

Moved Miaout of her previous place and am in the process of organizing her new place. This means a lot of IKEA trips and the like.

Had Kogi BBQ for the second time. Line was not as intense as it was the first time around. The deji bolkogi burrito was just as good. Yesterday, we had the rip off stuff from Baja Fresh. It was surprisingly good. People need to stop mispronouncing kogi though. Or correcting me when I pronounce it correctly. Seriously.

Anyway, i'll post about other stuff later because Chris wants me to get ready for D-land. I guess I should listen because it's his birthday and all.

Just wanted to post that it's past the halfway point of the year and I'm halfway through the book thing. Really slowed down after finals ended for some reason.

#24

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews.


Really funny. Love his writing. Need to read more of his stuff.

#25

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars



View all my reviews.


It was okay. I got it at the SF library for like $2 or something. I'd always been kind of curious to read it. It was okay. An easy read. Parts of it were fun, but idk.

We just got two Neil Gaiman books. James needed one for summer reading and I saw the other one while I was getting his summer reading book. I've also got that Al Gore book that I've been working on and a book on the secrets of SCOTUS. Let's see if I can get through these.

Also, I finished Book #20 on Monday.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews.


It was very funny. Always meant to read one of his books. Love his writing style

I'm going to play around with more fun internet features and actually use the blog features that goodreads gives me. I actually finished this about a week and a half ago, but just hadn't gotten around to posting it. Almost done with the book I'm currently reading too. Woot.

Book #17

Broken by Daniel Clay

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews.


the book as kind of like a modern day to kill a mockingbird. i picked it up at the sf library bookstore a couple of weeks ago, mostly because it had a cool looking cover and the plot on the back cover intrigued me. i really enjoyed it. am actually tempted to go back and reread to kill a mockingbird at some point now. it's about an 11 year old girl who is telling the story about how she came to be in a coma. it was one of those books that was hard to put down. because i read when i work out, that actually meant that i wanted to work out for 5-10 minutes longer than usual. strange, isn't it?

I am going to take a break from outlining the Statute of Frauds to post here. Hi. meant to post on Tuesday and Wednesday but never got to it. Last few days have been busy.

Tuesday - volunteered at GAAP and got a rose from one client I helped. i think he brought it in to give to anyone who helped him, but it made me happy. And now it's sitting in a water bottle. did homework. went to the Immigration Clinic with a TON of people because I guess the immigration class has to do mandatory field experience. got cookies at this good bakery we discovered last time we went on the way out and then stopped by the Coffee Bean and frozen yogurt on the way back. I even made it back in time to watch Idol. Um...yeah Adam Lambert was terrible. He was nor worthy of Simon's standing ovation.

Wednesday - killer day of classes. they switched our thurs/wed conlaw/contracts on us, so we had TWO hours of contracts in the morning. then we had to do a make up class for property, so we had three hours of property after that. There was some panel on legalizing pot between K and property, but I knew i was going to be worn out and wanted to get homework done, so i skipped out. it was in the room we had property, and it looked like it was kind of big deal. a LOT of newspeople there. The last hour of property was interesting too. Our prof brought in one of the attorneys who worked on the marriage cases. Interesting talk. Got back and had to bake a carrot cake for our hall dinner. The outside burned, so it tasted a little more like carrot bread, but I was able to disguise this under a thick layer of frosting. The floor dinner was good and a lot fun. Outlined and went to bed.

Today - two (more like 1.4) hours of Con Law. Read most of my Enviro law before GAAP. GAAP was really slow today. I only helped like one or two people. Came back and finished enviro law and have been doing an uber outlining session to make up for the work i'm not going to get done this weekend. not quite as productive as I'd hoped in terms of property outlining, but i am making some good progress in contracts. ... decent maybe is a better word for it.

Also, I haven't posted the last few books I read:

#14 - Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons - I think this was the first graphic novel i've ever read all the way through. AMAZING. the movie was apparently very well translated. Except, what was up with Night Owl's goofy snow suit in the novel? Lolz. Now I really want to watch the movie again.

#15 - The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall - picked it up at Green Apple Books while Jeanne and I were waiting for our table at Burma Superstar. The back looked intriguing, but the book was SO WEIRD. I'm still not sure if I completely got what happened.

#16 - Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin - Really inspiring account of this ex-mountaineer (Mortenson) who ends up building over 50 schools in Pakistan. Gianni got it for me for my birthday. Great read.

Speaking of books, some of my friends here have decided to do a book club over the summer. I am really excited about this, but now I'm purposely holding off on some books so I can use them as my suggestions for the book club. I got another book by Michael Chabon at the library last week and I'm dying to read it, but that's one of the books I want to hold off on.

I just wanted to check in and say that I have not disappeared. It's been a busy week between trying to catch up after an unproductive spring break and an interview in San Jose on Monday evening (that threw off my week like crazy) as well as preparing the oral argument and doing other stuff.

I want to post pictures, but I guess I'll do that later.

Spring break was good. Kicked it off by watching the Watchmen. Great movie, but we were in the front row so my neck hurt.

Played a lot of Wii Fit. Had some phone interviews that I have yet to hear back on. Chris came on Wednesday. We went to SF on Thursday night. Friday, we saw Watchmen on the IMAX, got frozen yogurt, saw the Cartoon Museum (which had props from Watchmen as well as drawings from the Escapist comic (see Kavalier and Clay) and other awesome stuff). Took BART to the Mission District to eat at Delfina Pizzeria. We got this prosciutto and mozarella di bufala pizza, some mozarella, and sausage. Gooood stuff. We also stopped by Safeway on the way back to get supplies for baking a pie. Unfortunately, we bought the wrong crust so we had to make it some weird way, but it worked out and was really good. Made it just in time for Pi Day too (March 14 for those of you who are not cool).

Saturday, we made our way passed the St. Patrick's Day parade (where Chris would not let me catch green beads) and went out to Pier 39 in search of Del Sol that was supposedly there. It wasn't, so we went to the Musee Mechanique and got some good crab chowder and crab sandwich at Fisherman's Wharf. Went to Ghiradelli's Square so Chris could get gifts for the people who wrote him recommendations (we found out he got into UCSB's grad program btw). Decided to take the cable car back. Of course, we were one of the last groups on, so we had to hang from the side, which was an extremely terrifying experience. There were also a significant amount of people (men and woman) wandering around Union Square in wedding dresses. Prop 8 something or other maybe? I don't know. We went back to the Mission for dinner at this pretty legit Mexican place called El Faralino. Good stuff.

Chris left on Sunday morning, so I made a sad attempt at getting homework done. I got all of Monday's stuff done at least, but didn't get any frontloading for the week in - part of the reason why this week's been especially busy.

After classes on Monday, Umma picked me up so we could go into SJ for my interview for a joint externship program with the Court of Appeals and Superior Court. Not sure at this point which way the interview went. I should find out soon whether I got in, so we'll see. Hopefully good! We were super early, so we stopped at Yogurtland on the way there. I hope that brought me good luck.

Tuesday I ended up missing both of my usually scheduled volunteer activities. Wasn't feeling too good and everyone who I go to the Immigration Clinic with had an immigration midterm to write, so well didn't end up going.

After Moot Court on Wed, Jeanne and I went over to Clement St to eat at this restaurant Burma Super Star. The wait was very long, so we put our name and phone number down and explored. Ended up getting some frozen yogurt and heading over to Green Apple Books, which was this pretty awesome (and huge) used book store. Talk about timing though. As we were leaving Green Apple, we had been waiting for about an hour/hour and a half. We were just about to give up when Jeanne got a call from the restaurant. Food was very good. Never had Burmese food before, so it was quite an experience. If I go again, I might have to try that tea leaf salad that everyone else in the restaurant seemed to order.

Today, I actually did go to GAAP and stayed an extra 30 minutes because I was helping a client. It works since it kind of makes up for the time I missed on Tuesday. It's not like I would have done anything important in those last 30 minutes. In fact, I don't know why I don't do that every week. I got some homework done after that. After 6, I went over to the 200 building because Lawrence Lessig was speaking on campus. Obviously, I had to go. I've been wanting to see him for years. I had brought my beat up, worn down, and written on copy of Code 2.0 with me to get signed, but ended up getting his new book Remix. We missed him at the wine and cheese reception to get our books signed, but Prof. Lee said that he'd help us meet him after he spoke. Great talk. He spent the first half talking about free culture/remix and the second half talking about Change Congress. And afterwards, we got to meet him and get our books signed. I feel really geeky to say that I was star struck. Haha. Actually, I guess they were all going to the SkyRoom after the talk, so we ended up riding the elevator with him too. Pretty cool.

Taping oral argument tonight. I've been trying to work on it. At least have something semi written down. They ask a lot of questions (or at least hopefully will), but having something written out is kind of like a safety blanket. I guess.

Also finished Book 13 - Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut. I've actually never read anything that he's written. This is a collection of short stories. I loved his writing style, so I'll have to read more of his stuff in the future. Once I make it through that giant pile of books that's been developing.

Still working on Watchmen.

Anyway, it's ridiculously late and I just used precious Moot Court time updating this, so I"m going to go to sleep now. Good night.

Spring break is drawing to a close, which is a very sad moment. Spring break was a lot of Wii Fit, relaxing, eating, Watchmen and unproductivity. Will post more on that later.

For now, I realized that I've forgotten to count down the last few books I've read.

10 - Strange as This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake

Depressing-ish. About coal mining and mountain top removal in West Virginia. Was good though.

11 - A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

Always wanted to read one of this books. Quirky and funny.

12 - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Loved it. About comic books. Longer than the other books I've read so far this year, but it never got boring. Apparently they're making a movie of the book.

That's about it now.

I should go to bed soon and I have a lot more to post, but I just wanted to do this one thing before I went to bed.

late last night I finished book #9

Bahamarama by Bob Morris

I got it at the library while I was looking for guidebooks on Peru (they had none of those). I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but this one had a really loud, cool and Jimmy Buffett-escque cover so I was intrigued. It definitely makes for summer reading as it's set in Florida and the Bahamas and is a fast paced thriller-type novel, but it was definitely a fun read. Quick read too. The "big twist" was painfully obvious and the main character was not entirely likeable, but it was fun. The author had an equally loud-looking book in the library. Maybe I'll save it for later in the year.

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.

I've got a lot of mini things to post about

1) I've finished Book #7 of the 50 books I plan to read this year. This one was A Cook's Tour by Anthony Bourdain. I've started to like reading travel books, mostly because the authors get to go to fun places that I either have never been to or will never be able to go to. This one is about food. Food + Travel = Happiness in my mind. In this book, Bourdain travels around the world looking for the perfect meal. He goes to Russia, Vietnam, Cambodia, France, California, Morocco, etc. and tries everything from goat testicles to (the much dreaded) vegan food. In the process, he more or less comes to the conclusion that there really is no one perfect meal. I've never actually seen his show. Might have to at some point. He's got kind of a big ego, but his book's a fun read.

2) This season of Lost has yet to disappoint. What happened last night? A lot of things. It was a Kate-centric episode so we got a lot of Kate and a lot of Jack-face. Still no flashback, which is kind of disappointing. Sayid demonstrated more of his pure powers of awesome. Someone's lawyers are trying to take Aaron away from Kate since he's not really his kid. She stalks the lawyer to figure out who it is. The lawyer happens to go to Claire's mom. Jack, being Claire's half-sister, steps up and says "hay, i've totally got this." He confront's Claire's mom and it turns out she has no idea what he's talking about, so he Jack-faces away into the distance and tells Kate to leave as quickly as possible. We find out it's Benry's lawyer doing all of this. He's also getting Hurley (or Hugo, since that's what everyone seems to be calling him now) out of prison. Anyway, Jack tells Kate that they HAVE to get to the docks, where they meet Ben and Sayid. Kate is clearly pissed that Jack tricked her into meeting with Ben. Sun, meanwhile, is hiding in a car with Aaron and is holding a gun that she got out of a chocolate box.

Meanwhile, on the island, we return to Quantum Leap on crack. Charlotte, Miles, and Juliette get nose bleeds. Sawyer sees a scene from Season 1, they get shot at by random people, and Ziggy malfunctions once again. Oh, also...Jin's alive. Yay! He gets rescued by a boat full of French people and we get to see young pre-crazy jungle woman Rousseau. Given that they're quantum leaping, we won't see her for long, but I wonder if we're going to FINALLY get backstory on that woman.

Also, I wonder if present-Locke is dead for good.

Yup, I don't think we have to worry about Lost going back to the crapfest known as Season 3 for a while.

3) There was a lot of eating today.

For lunch, I went with Jamie and a couple of other girls to Ananda Fuara, which is a vegetarian restaurant on Market and Larkin. I pass this place whenever I go to Walgreens and it's intrigued me for quite some time. Unfortunately, I feel like it was closed whenever I walked by. Considering how drab and semi-Tenderloiny it looks from the outside, it's really cute on the inside. I was actually pretty nonadventurous today and had eggplant parmesan, something I could have just as easily gotten at Morty's next to GAAP. I don't know. I was in an eggplant mood. It was really good though. It's also relatively inexpensive and I've heard good things about their other dishes, so I guess I'll have to go back and try something else there some other time.

For dinner, I went with KALSA to Cocobang. It was a post-BOB party since KALSA hosted BOB. I was actually supposed to volunteer and pass out kimbap at BOB, but I could only get Career Office appointments at BOB time or GAAP time and I figured that helping homeless people was just a little more important than giving law students free kim bap. I missed Korean drums, apparently, though. That would have bee fun. Anyway, we went to Cocobang. Chris and I had been there before. It's definitely one of those places that's more fun to go to in a big group. We shared chicken, and bibimbap, and dokkbokki, and I don't remember what else. We also had soju. It was fun. A lot of the group went to a norebang after. Jeanne and I went back. Homework, what else?

4) Group auditions yesterday for Idol were fun. That Tatiana girl is obnoxious, but she's never going to bring as much drama as the twins from Season 5. In fact, they might as well give up trying to make Hollywood week seem uber dramatic becaus there is never going to be a Hollywood week moment as great as this one.

That's it. Sleep time.