Final Exams and Winter in Tucson

I have my last final exam tomorrow.  Civil Procedure.  Right now, I suppose I am as ready as I will ever be.  Maybe, I'll glance at one more practice question before bed though... Weather permitting, I'll be back in Portland less than 48 hours from now.  I would appreciate it if you all would throw up some prayers to your deity of choice that my flight doesn't get cancelled. Christmas in Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix doesn't sound very fun.  

In honor of the recent cold spell in my homeland, which hopefully won't keep my plane out of the sky, I thought I would post some pics of winter in Tucson.  Enjoy!

November Update

I have just four days of classes left in my first term of law school!  We are off this week for Thanksgiving, then we come back to school for our last week.  After that, I just have to study for my finals, which the powers that be unfortunately decided to prolong this year.   The last day of classes is Dec. 4 but my last final isn't until Dec. 22.  Talk about pain!  Not to mention a short winter break.  

A short winter break means a short time to visit home.  Tucson really isn't a bad place to live.  It was 81 degrees today.  You can't beat that with a stick.  But this place has nothing on Oregon.  I think I have always known that I want to grow old in Oregon but these last few weeks have really confirmed it.  I am especially drunk on the Portland kool-aid.  There are terrific bars, clubs, and shows in Portland.  The city itself is beautiful and its politics are progressive.  The people are really cool and I miss my family and friends.  And, God help me, I like Oregon weather!  I enjoy seeing the seasons change and the leaves fall.  I'm stoked to get home and catch some Blazers games with Dane and Carly, play some poker with Big Papa Joe Knight, take a trip down to Corvallis and throw back some tequila shots at Sancho's with Craig and Ralph, spend Christmas with my family, and, of course, pass a day or three at Powell's City of Books.

I am going to need the rest.  I will try my best not to turn into a twitchy, caffeine-addled mess but I know the next month here is going to be intense.  As I try to put together my outlines and prepare for finals, the workload is amping up.  Without being overly dramatic, our grades are based entirely on final exams.  While I am not nervous or anxious about the exams (yet anyway), I do understand the importance of doing well on them.  They represent the culmination of four months worth of effort.

I can't believe it is November already

It all seems so surreal to me.  I cannot believe that I have been in Tucson for all of three months.  It seems like I blinked in August and when I opened my eyes, I was here in November.  My first final is in less than a month.  I have a long, busy road ahead of me until I fly back to Portland on December 23rd, though I am sure the time will seem to pass even faster...   

Big Win on the road for Portland

Check out the box score HERE.

My goodness

Watch Portland's improbable 101-99 victory over Houston on Thursday HERE.

Halloween Weekend

On Friday night, I went out to this club called Level with a UPS worker, the spice girls, a french maid, a 70s police officer, two avid golfers, a goddess, a hooters girl, and a Barack Obama supporter.  There I saw a fallen angel, Michael Phelps, some pirates, some vampires, a jester, Paulie Bleaker, and others.  I drank.  I went to bed late. 

On Saturday, I rolled out of bed at around noon.  Went down to this little cafe and ate breakfast while working on my Contracts outline...in fact, I spent most of the rest of the weekend working on my Contracts outline and taking a practice Contracts midterm.  I did hang out with Z on Saturday night and watch the Portland and OSU games.  Afterward, we hit Applebee's for half-price drafts.

October 27, 2008

-woke up late, barely made it to Con Law in time

-went to my other classes

-ran two miles (17:30).

-studied in the library for two hours

-went in search of Professor Glennon and ended up chatting with Professor Bublick and Professor Washburn instead.

-worked at the fortune telling booth at the law school halloween carnival

-hit up Bentley's for some iced tea and more quality studying time

October 26, 2008

-Went to breakfast at the Bread and Butter Cafe and read the NY Times.

-Watched the newest episode of The Office.

-Met with my study group at the library to work on Contracts.

-Went to Sunday dinner with Grace at her aunt and uncle's house.

-Talked to my parents on the phone.  My mom just walked a half-marathon.

-Watched some Arrested Development with Grace.

-More Contracts!  Z, Ellen, and I closed down the library.

October 25, 2008

• Hit the gym with Grace in the morning, played some pick-up basketball.
  
• Went for a bike ride
• Worked on my Con. Law outline while watching college football.

October 24, 2008

The Old Main tricked out for homecoming

Three seconds later...

-Ran two miles (17:19)

-Went to the 1L luncheon with the Board of Visitors where I met Grace's dad, Colin.

-Went on an impromptu tour of the locker room with Z, Priya, and Bubbles.

-Met with Jon to go over the memo assignment for torts lab.

-Dropped in on the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new law library.  Dean Massaro gave a speech that was both very good and very long.  I am definitely going to have to take Con Law II with her.

-Went out to a Mexican restaurant with Grace and her family.  It wasn't good Mexican food; there wasn't an un-refried bean in sight. 

-Studied Contracts and Con Law; added to my Con Law outline

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

Hey all,

I am changing the blog up a bit.  From this point forward, my posts will seldom use the narrative voice.  Instead, each post will consist of a set of quick bullet points about cool or interesting or important things I have done or seen that day and, on occasion, pictures.  I am making this change for myself mostly.  It will save me time and It will give me an easy-to-access chronicle of my experiences that will allow my to look back and track how I am passing my time.  

Though I could have done this on a paper journal, I want to keep the blog up so you, my friends and family, will still have a little window in my life.  As a by-product of the new format, look forward to more frequent blog posts.

Also, I am thinking about launching another blog project with an entirely different theme.  If I am able to get it off the ground, it will appear in a different forum from blogspot.  That is all I will say for now because it is still in its infancy.  But look out for more information as things develop.

Cheers,

Andy

Matt Damon on Sarah Palin

AND Collegehumor chimes in:

Monday Movie Night

I went to see Religulous with some folks in my small section tonight.  It is Bill Maher's call to action to agnostics.  It's funny, thought-provoking and worth a luck if you can handle Maher's smugness.  Check out the trailer here.

Pictures!

Pictures from my recent trip up Mt. Lemmon (~9000 ft).  It is the southernmost peak in the U.S. which is ski-able during the winter.

Also, my good friend Chris just left for South Africa and he is starting a blog about his experiences there.  Check it out to the left!

Amazingsuperpowers

For post-modern humor, check out amazingsuperpowers.com.

Almost three weeks in...

Okay, so I managed to sneak into the main room for the Breyer speech on Monday.  He is an engaging speaker and an amazing man.  He reminded me a lot of Marcus Borg, a Jesus scholar who used to teach philosophy classes at OSU and debate about Christianity in his spare time.  Borg has an infectious sort of charisma and Breyer is much the same.  That being said, I thought his speech, which revolved around the Dred Scott case, was mediocre.  He belabored the facts of the case too much and didn't get to his main point until last two minutes.  I wanted to hear him talk more about the Supreme Court as it is made up today and we didn't get much of that.

After my Constitutional Law class tomorrow, I will officially have finished three weeks of law school.  I haven't dropped out in favor of dental school yet but it has been interesting to watch my classmates.  At this point, there are basically three groups of people.  The first group (like myself) are leaning to love the law and really enjoying testing their mental capacity and trying to think in a new way, the second group are treading water and still trying to find their way, and the last group already are teetering on the brink of burnout.  It is going to be a long eight months for those people who are already complaining about law school every chance they get.

The Supreme Court Justice Cometh

I am sitting in the lobby of the law school amidst a buzz of excitement surrounding the upcoming arrival of Justice Stephen Breyer to give a talk on I don't even know what here at the law school.  I didn't win the lottery to actually get into the room with him, so I will watch him on streaming video in one of the two overfill rooms.  Pictures are probably out of the question but I may post on the talk later.  

Also, my good friend Jessica just started a blog about her new life in Appalachia teaching adult education classes.  Check it out at the left.

Reason and Passion

I am now well into my second week of law school and, though the workload is heavy, I am enjoying myself immensely.  I am headed to bed shortly after I finish the glass of wine I am currently sipping on.  Before I do, I would like to share with you one of my favorite passages from Khalil Gibran's The Prophet.  The conceit Gibran uses to convey his thoughts in this thin volume is the arrival of a prophet in the imaginary city of Orphalese.  The people of Orphalese gather around this prophet and ask him to speak on various topics.  For instance, a lawyer asks about laws and nursing mother asks about children.  

Here, a priestess asks the prophet to speak of reason and passion.  He answers:

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and sails of your seafaring soul.

If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

...

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows--then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."

And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky,--then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."

And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

----------------------------------

Goodnight all.

Picture Update

Outside the law school at night

High up in the foothills surrounding Tucson

Cacti, Cacti, everywhere

A good shot of Wildcat Stadium

My workspace

Those rainy days in... Tucson?

Here is a look at the Tucson sky at about 4:30 this afternoon.  It rained on me for most of the day.  This was nothing like the intense monsoon of two weeks ago; it was just ordinary, Portland-esque rain.  As a matter of fact, I would bet that it has rained much more here in Tucson, since I've been here, than it has in Portland.  Of course, this is the "rainy season"and in November when it is raining every day up in the Willamette Valley, it will be a balmy 75 degrees here with clear blue skies.  

I had my first day of classes today.  I love my professors.  My Con Law prof, Glennon, is a brilliant lecturer and funny as hell.  My contracts prof, Washburn, is a bit of a nerd, but also funny and a really nice guy.  I like the work in the library to prepare for classes, though you should ask me if I still feel that way come November.  The workload itself is definitely heavier than it was for undergraduate but I don't think it will be unmanageable.

The Way Back Machine

As I type, there is a furious freshman block party going on outside of my building.  I live in La Aldea, the graduate student dormitories,  part of a quad with three undergraduate dorms.  

It has all the ingredients of a good party, minus the libations.  There is even a DJ, bumping some admittedly dated tracks from the likes of Sean Paul and Shakira.  I took a break from the U.S. Constitution to join a couple of beach volleyball games with my roommates.  There are a hundred or more eighteen and nineteen year olds down there, eating Panda Express and drinking lemonade, playing volleyball, or simply chatting on the grass.

The freshman have been slowly but surely filling up the surrounding dorms as the week has progressed.  It is interesting to watch and talk with them, flush with freedom, trying to find their place in a whole new world.  It makes me think back to my first days as an undergraduate, uncertain and trying much too hard to be the epitome of a COLLEGE GUY.  I invite you to think back to your first days as an undergraduate and to contemplate how far you have come since then.

Cheers,

Andy

P.S.  This picture is for you, Analicia.

Picture update

desert beauty

Looking down the main drag on campus

A wildcat family

How incredibly beautiful is the place where I go to school?

Developing Relationships

This was going to be a picture update but this was the only pic I could get to load today before the Blogger picture uploader broke.  There will be pics in the near future, and I got some amazing shots.  I understand why so many people retire here.  I am not sure that it quite matches up to Portland, but living in Tucson is good for the soul.

I have been developing some great friendships with some amazing people here.  I am sure that some of these relationships will last the rest of my life.  The BRIDGE program gave me a built in group of people that I identified with; these people are in the same place for the same reason that I am.  It is easy to strike up conversations and make connections.  It is important that we are all law students; human beings want to be around people that are like them.  We want to be around people in which we see a little bit of ourselves.  I know what you're thinking...Did Andy just say that all people are narcissists?  Of course that is not what I am saying.  I think it is more that we want to be around people that we understand.  Naturally we gravitate toward people who share the same characteristics as we do because we can understand them more easily.  We don't like to be confused. 

 The great thing (and the intense, crazy thing) about law school is that everyone here IS so alike.  Sure, we all have different interests, different hometowns, and different favorite ice cream flavors.  We are, however, all BIG Type-A personalities thrust into a small space, working toward the same goals, with an element of competition thrown in as a spice.  Naturally, this leads to some entertaining fireworks displays and little battles are sometimes fought between people who have a lot more in common than they like to admit.  At the same time, intense, long-lasting friendships are formed between people who have similar goals and ambitions.  The loves established here are so deep, and the rivalries are so fierce, because we all understand each other well, and this understanding magnifies and deepens relationships.

Okay, that's it!  Before I go though, I want to give a big birthday shout out to my mom (August 15), Kaleena (August 16), and Stephanie (August 17)!

*Author's note:  All of my theories on relationships (much like Freud's) are untestable hypotheses and may not hold up under any kind of scrutiny.

A benefit of writing

I had my first day of the BRIDGE orientation program today.  They had a mock class about a hypothetical "first case in the world."  During the lecture, the professor digressed and spent a little time talking about the importance of writing skills to the lawyer's profession.  He said, "We think fast and we talk fast.  Writing deepens thought by forcing us to slow down."  Something to think about.  Maybe writing isn't just a rote regurgitation of the things going on in our heads.  Maybe it can help us expand our ability to express ourselves and even our knowledge of ourselves.

Also, my good friend Analicia just started a blog.  You can check it out by clicking on the link to the left.

Talk to you soon.

Update and photos for family and friends

closet shot

The bathroom sink

I think I got the extra-tall shower

Towels!

Making do with what I have.  I present to you... my nightstand!

The bed.  Now with sheets!

My view

Bookshelf and workstation

Second closet shot.  It's bigger than it looks

A desert garden

More desert greenery

The science and engineering library

Wildcat Stadium off in the distance

A very pink private school across from the campus

The main library

First things first, I want to shout out to all my wonderful family and friends back in Oregon; I miss you already!  That being said, I like Tucson very much.

The last 36 hours have been hectic.  My parents brought me to the airport on Saturday morning and after eating breakfast at the Rose City Grill, they said goodbye to me.  My last few days in Oregon were good ones.  I spent a lot of time with the people I love.  

The flight to Tucson only took about four hours.  My layover in Phoenix was short, and on the connecting flight I got to talk golf with an electrician from Vancouver, B.C.  Upon my arrival, I had to do the normal move-in stuff and then I just wanted to nap on my bare mattress.  Two suitcases really can't hold very much and my room looked pretty sparse once I got everything unloaded.  I had no sheets and no pillows.  After dozing off for a few minutes, I got to meet my two roommates.  One, Lance, is 22-year old Chinese man who has only been stateside for two weeks.  His English is mediocre but he seems nice (And yes, Dad, he actually did cook me dinner last night.  Authentic Chinese food.  Not a deep friend egg roll in sight).  The other, Ben, is... well, he didn't stay very long and he spent the night at a hotel with his parents but... the best way I can describe him is to imagine the nerdiest looking guy you can think of and then take just a shade off of that only because he wasn't wearing a pocket protector.  

After meeting these guys, I took a tour of the campus and took some pictures.  I love the U of A campus.  The architecture is a little like OSU except everything is on a grand scale.  It is HUGE.  After my impromptu campus tour, I had dinner with Lance and then went out for drinks with a  2L who I spent some time with when I took my campus tour last March.  She is a unique and multi-layered woman, and I had a blast with her.  We started talking to three locals while at the bar (a really cool spot) and I got to learn a little about Tucson while talking with them about Portland beers.  

Today, I took the shuttle over to Target and bought some things for the apartment.  I took some pics of my slightly less sad-looking room.  That's it so far.  Today I have to read over a case and go check out some bicycles at the shop down the road. 

Cheers,

Andy