valentine's day

joel and i celebrated the day of love on saturday (instead of wednesday). we had to be practical and admit that school rules our lives and that we could not afford the time during the week.

i really wanted to dress up because i had bought the secret weapon dress and really wanted to wear it (plus, i love when joel dresses up).



for christmas, my mom got gift certificates to maggianos. she gave them to us because she thought we would get more out of them.

neither joel nor myself are planners so when we went to the restaurant day of, they only had reservations for 9:30. no problem...we'll go to the movie first. unfortunately, i couldnt remember where the theater was and we didnt have our cell phones with us (i hate those things until i dont have it on my hip).

joel, being the sweetheart that he is, let me choose the movie (we went to a real theater...not the $2 theater in la mirada...although, it was still cheap because he had free passes). i wanted to see the queen but it wasnt playing so we say because i said so.

horrible movie! about 40 minutes into i turned to joel and could tell he was suffering...as was i. so we left and went back to the brea mall.

we decided to do a little shopping but too bad for us all the stores closed at 8pm.



but we still had fun walking around, taking pictures and talking. i also loved getting multitudes of compliments on my dress.



around 9 we went back to the restaurant. we had a fantastic meal! its really nice to feel unconstrained by money. for an appetizer we got mussels. for dinner, joel got beef medallions and i got chicken cacciatore with garlic mashed potatoes. for dessert, joel got espresso with ice cream and i got spumoni. we also had some wine. it was wonderful (and we had left overs the next day).



crying over spilled wine...



now i'm back to the grind of studying and outlining. although, tomorrow is the much talked about bluebook competition.

bluebook competition?

here's a little picture of what i like to call "law school."

next week i will be involved in a citation contest (officially i will be a citationaire). now, before you get too excited let me explain what this is all about. i'll start from the beginning.

last semester we had an ungraded quiz (actually most of our work is ungraded...i've never seen so many people work so HARD for ungraded work...pure madness) to see who would qualify to be in the citation contest. now, when i say citations i mean footnotes and things of that nature. if you thought the mla was bad, its nothing compared to the horror that is the "bluebook."



its 415 pages long and tells us lawyers the proper way to cite...everything. you name it, the bluebook has it. needless to say this is the bane of most law students existence. ok, so last semester we took this quiz and had 10 minutes to answer 20 bb (thats the cool way to refer to the bluebook) questions.

here's a sample (and this is an easy one to get you two acquainted).
Kelley v. Law School, 123 U.S. 45 (2006). (imagine that the first part is underlined, but not the comma...that would be a bb no-no).

i would then have to figure out what is wrong with that cite (for all those that didnt rush to their bluebooks to look it up, School should be Sch. are you starting to understand the hellish nature of this thing?)

so, i stupidly did well (actually, in a sick way the bb and i gel nicely. i didnt study for the test yet i was one of the top 4...my roommates and i joke that the bb and i have a special bond).

so now i have to be in this competition next week. 4 of us from each section (there are 4 sections) will be competing in the competition. i just reviewed the slides from 2 years ago and i'm in trouble. the competition is 15 rounds and we have like 30-45 seconds to answer the questions (generally the same idea as above...yet harder citations). as if thats not enough, our friends and loved ones are sitting in the audience mocking us as we sweat out the bluebook competition.

and as if things couldnt get any worse, the various sections are smack talking each other...saying things like "you guys are going down," or "we could cite circles around you guys." lame, i know. and, my professor has been announcing the competition for the past few months and everytime she does she puts up a power point slide with our names on it! so i am constantly reminded of this competition. ugh. cool people....please save me!

i'll be posting the results next wednesday after 5pm...in case you're interested.

pictures from saturday

holly, matt,and ben



kasey and grace



amy and david



jason, me and joel



joel and me

good weekend

this past weekend was great! (seems like i cant say that much these days)

on saturday i watched the final moot court round. the two teams were fantastic and received quite a beating from the solicitor general (who was one of the judges). i'm glad i wasnt one of the guys up in front getting pummeled..but they recovered beautifully.

saturday night joel came up and we went to the beverly wilshire for a very swanky evening. to start the evening off right nine of us packed into my friend jason's land cruiser and arrived at the hotel in style (although i did feel like a circus clown getting out of the car....you know how they pack 20 guys into a bug? thats what i was thinking). the ballroom at the hotel was packed and everyone looked gorgeous. in the past this event has been black tie but this was the first night it was suits only. some people still came in long gowns and tuxes but i opted to leave the sequins at home and went with a black strapless (not to mention joel who looked great in a suit!). once i figure how to post pictures i'll post a few so you can see how fabulous we looked. for dinner we had filet mignon (i got one of the best cooked filets of all of us...funny how the best piece was wasted on me the non-steak eater....joel was drooling over it) and salmon, vegetables, salad, and blackberry cobbler. the solicitor general was our entertainment. needless to say, it was a great evening.

yesterday was soooo fun! we went to church at 2 and then after stayed for a superbowl party. after arguing with sean about the wholesomeness of a betting pool (and then conferring with the pastor that Jesus would approve) i got one going and charged everyone $0.25 a sqaure. after much cajoling and guilting i filled all the squares. it was a great evening....one of merriment and lots of shouting at the tv.

now i'm back to the monday grind and am starting to stress about jobs this summer. apparently i was supposed to already have one.

workout

i worked out today. i'm on this new diet kick. its short lived really. the main reason for it is this dinner i'm going to on saturday. its at the beverly wilshire and there will be a lot of people there looking great and i want to be one of those people. so, i'm working out and eating less calories (kinda...i mostly just eat what i want and pretend that it all has less calories).

so last time i worked out i overdid it a bit. it took me 2 1/2 days to recover. which means that i could barely walk for that amount of time...stairs were horrible! and we have so many of them here.

but this time i went easier on myself and am not nearly as sore. tomorrow should be a brighter day.

moot court

well...i've just returned from the moot court competition. unfortunately for me i have to do the same thing (oral argument...in a suit...in front of a judge) in just a few short months. needless to say, i am terrified. do they know what they are doing? i'm only in my first year...this is definitely a good way to weed out the crowd.

number 1

after reading dan's blog (and thoroughly enjoying it as usual) and then finding kate's blog i decided i also needed a blog. so here it is...the place for free legal advice. hehehe...or a place to get into hours of trouble. sounds more like it. now i just have to figure out how to make it so you can read it.

right now i'm sitting at my desk looking out the window at the palm trees and mountains. i love living in malibu. the best part is the scent that wafts into my room when the window is open. its a mix of jasmine and eucalyptus (and probably deer poop since this place has more deer than people).

i just finished reading civ pro and now i need to read contracts so that when i go the trial (students here are pretending they are real lawyers and are arguing about stuff...surprising) tonight i dont have much to do when i get back.

well...that should just about do it for my first post. i must apologize to dan and those before me that adopted the black background for their blog. what can i say? i'm a poser and want to be cool like you guys...