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

Last day in Oregon

What a great last day in Oregon!  I woke up and ate at my favorite Corvallis breakfast place with one of my best friends, and got to take one last road trip in my car.  A first year associate at a Portland law firm bought me lunch and I got to pick his brain about law school.  I met another one of my best friends at Cruiser's for a burger and a ginormous chocolate ice cream cone.  She got me a birthday present and we bonded telling stories about our parents.  Then I came home and packed before YET ANOTHER best friend of mine came by to exchange birthday gifts (his b-day was July 23).  We watched Dr. Horrible and he confessed that he bought a PS3 (kind of an inside thing).  Then I dropped in on two of the coolest old people at my parent's condominium complex for some cocktails and conversation.  I sat out under the beautiful Portland sky, in sixty-five degree weather, drinking premium vodka on the rocks with lime, and trading stories with people 50 years my senior.  It was awesome.  I couldn't be happier right now.  Good night and good luck.

Stay tuned for updates from Tucson!

Cheers,

Andy

Old Flames and Joss Whedon

Yesterday, I went shopping in Woodburn with an ex-girlfriend of mine.  We had a bad break-up and I hadn't seen her in nearly four years.  She looked great and it was good to see that she is doing well but the experience was an awkward one.  We didn't have much in common when we dated and we have even less now.  The conversation was strained and forced.  She DID help me pick out some cool new threads for my ever-growing Tucson wardrobe.

Also, if you haven't already, you owe it to yourself to check out Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion.

Goodbyes

I dropped in on my Grandpa Bob and Grandma Janet today for lunch.  After washing down my tuna melt and watermelon with a Rolling Rock, I had to leave for a 2:30 tee time with Cmos.  I hugged them both.  My grandfather is a backslapper when he hugs.  Then I said my goodbyes.  I won't be seeing either of them again until I come back for Christmas, and there was this awkward moment where we didn't really know what to say.  It's hard to tell someone that I love and usually get to see every few weeks, "goodbye" for a significant amount of time.  Finally my grandfather, almost crying, broke through the silence with a, "see you around, dude."  I said, "see you around," got in my car, and left.

I have had this experience with a lot of my friends lately.  There is a moment upon parting where each of us realizes that we won't be seeing each other again soon and then comes the awkward silence followed by some variation of "see you around," "good luck in Arizona," or "Let's do something over winter break..."

Lovin' summer

A friend of mine called me today and reminded me how long it has been since I have written a blog post.  I like blogging.  It is therapeutic.  I want to get back into the habit of doing it.  Today, I will write briefly about how grateful I am for all that I have.  I have wonderful family and friends, am young and healthy, and am about to embark on an incredible adventure (law school/the rest of my life).  I am about as happy as I think it is possible to be.   Reading Howard Zinn's The People's History of the United States: 1492-Present has helped me realize just how lucky I am.  It's a great read.  Both worldview-shattering and depressing.  

Well, i am going to turn in.  I promise to write again soon.

Airport Bars

I just got back from a two-day trip to Tucson to visit University of Arizona law school. I will post more on my experiences their later. For this post I want to focus on airport bars. Airport bars are a great place to meet random, interesting people. I figure this is because people at airport bars are travelers and people who travel are, almost uniformly, interesting. Here is a quick rundown of everybody I met in airport bars on the trip and their stories. Also, the airport where I met them is in parenthesis:


Kyle (Portland): A construction manager who travels all over the west coast for his job.

Nathan (Phoenix): A grad student in physics at the University of Arizona who grew up on an organic dairy farm in Wisconsin. He and his girlfriend both graduate in the spring. She is headed to San Diego and he is going to Europe. He worries that their relationship won't survive the separation.

Mel (Tucson): The lead custodian for a weapons company in Tucson. Her mother recently died and she is on the way to Minnesota to bury her.

Meaghan Smith (Tucson): Washington D.C. press secretary for Congressman John Hall.

John Hall (Tucson): The aforementioned congressman from New York's 19th congressional district. He had been in Tucson surveying the border and was getting ready to head back to New York. He was a pop musician before becoming a congressman. He co-founded the band Orleans. He told me the story of how he met his wife. He supports Hillary Clinton in the democratic primary. Learn more about John here.

Larry and Shawntel (Las Vegas): Two Canadians from Ottawa wrapping up a vacation to Sin City. Shawntel is an accountant for a government office there and Larry is a battery salesman. Larry said "eh" multiple times throughout the conversation while Shawntel explained to me her earnest desire to be an American citizen. She wants to live in the "City of Angels." As I had become quite drunk by this point, I couldn't keep myself from cracking up over their accents and Shawntel's flawed vision of what life is like in America.

Brittany (Las Vegas): A beautiful fashion design major from a school in Orlando, she used to work on a cruise ship and spent two months living on a couch in Hawaii. She shot tequila and drank "White Russians" with me and we lost track of time. We made a mad dash to our gate and just barely made it onto the plane before they closed the doors. We were sitting on opposite ends of the airplane but she convinced the guy sitting next to her to trade his aisle seat for my middle seat several rows back because she "reeeeeeeeealy [wanted] to sit with her boyfriend." We told each other alcohol-fueled stories for the duration of the plane ride. She was awesome.

Colonialism

I was reading something for my history of Africa class a couple of weeks ago about the evils of colonialism and it made me think of this Eddie Izzard bit. Enjoy!

Spring Break Law School visits, part I: Lewis and Clark

I visited Lewis and Clark Law School on Friday. Thursday night, we celebrated Joe's birthday and the end of finals in Corvallis with a little drinking and a lot of Warcraft III. Alex and I went in on a "White-Russian experience" for Joe. We brought together Kahlua Especial, Ciroc Vodka, and rbst-free 1% milk to make some damn tasty White Russians. After I sobered up, I left for Portland but I didn't get home until about 1:30 AM.

When I arrived at Lewis and Clark at 8:45 AM, I was still feeling the effects of my late night. Luckily, they had a nice breakfast prepared for us where I was able to fill up on black tea. During the reception breakfast, the dean of the law school sold us on L&C for about 30 minutes and, I must admit, he was very persuasive. His main points were the strength of the law faculty as well as their willingness to engage with students, the collegial atmosphere, the beautiful and dynamic legal setting, the top-ranked environmental law program, and the emerging focus on international law. He is an accomplished litigator who has argued many cases and it showed. He was impressive.

After the breakfast, the prospective students (about 150 of us) separated into two sections. One went to a mock Criminal Law class and another went to some tax law thing. I went to the Criminal Law class, so I don't know very much about what the other group did but I think I got the better deal. The mock-class was amazing. I realize that L&C probably broke out their most likable professor and a particularly sexy topic for this the preview day and that most classes won't be as much fun as this one. Even so, if law school is ANYTHING like that Crim Law class, I will have a blast. We discussed cannibalism on the high seas and Professor John Perry was bright, witty, and engaging. The hour allotted for the class passed in what felt like a heartbeat.

Next, we split up into several small groups and toured the law school campus. Everything was so beautiful. Looking at the law school, I got the impression that it is an organic extension of the beautiful natural environment that surrounds it. All of the buildings were aesthetically impressive, inside and out, particularly the Legal Research Center where the reception was held. It has these huge two-story windows that show a spectacular view of the adjacent Tryon Creek State Park. It is funny; I was so focused on mingling with the people around me and the dean's speech that I didn't even look out the windows during the reception. Walking above the reception area during the tour, however, on an open sort of bridge/walkway on the second floor of the Legal Research Center, I finally got a glimpse of what was outside those windows. My jaw dropped. "My God, look at that!" I exclaimed. I think the others in my tour group thought it a little weird that I was just noticing the view for the first time.

After the tour, I attended an hour-long forum on the law school curriculum with three instructors in one of the classrooms. The people to my immediate left and right were a girl from Dallas who taught grade school in Texas for three years after graduating University of Texas at Austin and another from Massachusetts who worked for AmeriCorps as a sort of park ranger/tour guide in Cape Cod after graduating Michigan State University. They were fun to talk with and this brings me to another point about the whole experience. I don't think I have ever been surrounded by so many interesting, engaging, attractive people. I talked with a lot of the other students and, almost universally, they were amazing.

Next, we went to a lunch where one instructor was placed at each table. Perry's class was such a hit that many students clamored to sit with him. Luckily, I was one of the first ones through the food line and I was able to get a spot at his table. He was just as engaging in this more personal setting and he did his level best to sell us on the school. During lunch, the dean reappeared and introduced each of the more than forty faculty members who were eating with us. Then, as dessert was served, the dean invited us to move around and talk with any of the faculty that interested us. I left an interesting discussion Perry was having about one of his foreign policy law classes and went over to a legal writing professor and then to an adjunct who was actually a Lewis and Clark graduate and teaches classes on environmental justice.

After lunch, we had a couple more short sessions with law school employees, one with career services and another with financial aid. Then we went to a student organization fair and, in addition to sampling some tasty vegan cupcakes at the animal law table, I met a charming, pretty girl who is a grad student at Oregon State. When I asked her the other schools she is considering, she reeled off some impressive names. She also said something interesting that resonated with my own experience. "I had pretty much written off Lewis and Clark before today but now I have to reconsider," she said. I feel the same way. Though L&C gave me a nice scholarship and would probably be the best option for me if I stayed in Oregon, I had subconsciously eliminated the school from serious consideration in favor of the more "prestigious" schools to which I have been admitted. I almost didn't even attend the preview day. That is no longer the case. The Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark is now, for all intents and purposes, my top choice, though I am reserving final judgment until after I attend the other preview days I have this week and until I get letters from Loyola, Washington and Lee, and Vanderbilt.

My Dad raised an interesting point about another possible benefit of choosing Lewis and Clark I hadn't thought of. I have been wait-listed at Cornell and UCLA, both top 15 law schools, as well as William and Mary, a prestigious school in Virginia that has a legal philosophy that aligns with my own conception of a lawyer's social duty. If I accept Lewis and Clark's offer with the caveat that I will attend either of those schools if they eventually accept me, it will be a much easier transition than if I had already made housing plans in another city. I had written off the schools that wait-listed me because of probable logistical difficulties of waiting around for those schools to make a final decision but choosing Lewis and Clark would bring the possibility of those dream schools back into play.

After the preview day ended and most of the prospective students left, I headed for the Boley law library and, to see what it would feel like, I just sat and read for about an hour. It was a pleasant experience with so much beauty, both natural and man-made, surrounding me.

L & C put on a great show. They have vaulted themselves to first place in my informal ranking-system and worked my excitement and anticipation for law school to a fever-pitch.

Trailblazers basketball

I am home in Portland tonight. I watched the Blazer game over at Dane's on his huge plasma-screen television. It was a great game. Portland beat arguably the best team in the league, the Los Angeles Lakers, 119-111. I haven't seen the Blazers' offense clicking this well since their 13-game winning streak. Alex went to the game with his dad and I'm jealous. With James Jones and Brandon Roy back, if Jarret Jack keeps playing as well as he did tonight, I don't think a playoff push is out of the question.

Dane's a good guy. I've known him since grade school. He's one of my oldest friends. I think he is bored. He is living in his big apartment, soon to be all by himself, once Justin moves out, and all he does is work and work out at the gym. I know he misses his girlfriend. She is in Australia for three months on a study abroad program. I know he is happy that she went on the trip and is having so much fun but I think he also wishes he still had that person to share his life with. And who can blame him? Carly's awesome.