First four thoughts about Alaska:

1. Alaska, you stole my money! When I went to get a cart for my luggage, I put three dollars in ($1 more than Seattle) and it kept asking for $1 more. Damn you! I finally had to go to another cart station and use my credit card.

2. Wow. It really is still light outside. And it's midnight. And the mountains look enormous.

3. But the cabbies are still from India.

4. Basement apartments suck. My room is dorm-size. But wait... basement means little or no light, which means closer to achieving total darkness, which means better sleep. Sleep! Now there's a foreign concept. Went to bed at 1:45 last night and got up this morning at 8:30. Help! Jet lag!

Okay, off to Walmart I go.

It's 3 am on Saturday (is it still Friday night if you haven't gone to sleep yet?) and I've gotten three hours of sleep since Wednesday night and it's all due to that stupid law review competition which all the hallmates and I worked really hard on and we all feel crappy about our final products. But it's in, and the year is really and truly and finally over, and I have 12 hours before a friend picks me up to take me to the airport and I am going to wake up in 6 hours to pack because my room looks pretty much the way it has all year (i.e., LOTS of packing to do tomorrow. Like, the whole room).

In the freakishly coincidental way in which life often plays out, today -- er, yesterday, that is -- was the first day it didn't rain since the competition began. It was actually sort of warm-ish. I'd worn a hoodie and tweed jacket to the copy center in town to make the required copies to turn it, and I took them both off. After turning my stuff in, I lit a cigarette outside and walked to the stairs outside my old room. Sat down and looked at the dorm. Still looks like a prison. But you can afford to be generous when you've gotten out.

The other hallmates went out to their various functions (I find it weird, though, that we all didn't go out together), but I stayed in, feeling nauseated from someThai take-out we'd ordered. Put some books in boxes, read the Wide Gauge collection BC gave me, puttered around. Joiner came back around 1:30 completely tanked, and proceeded to take a very long time to hurl. And then clogged the sink. And then encouraged me to leave when, after the sink would not unclog, I brought in two plastic cups and scooped up a cupful of vomit and water to dump in the toilet and nearly gagged myself. She called me a good friend. I call us anal, but considerate.

And so endeth the first year.

Well, I have a too-long, meandering, thesis-less rough draft of my case comment (and I mean really rough. No, really. Like, notes everywhere that say, "CITE!!!" and "Wow, do something with this ending, it sucks." and "Possibly rewrite entire argument section with a THESIS -- how about that balancing test criticism idea? -- and while awake."). But I am done in for tonight.

And in other news, remember KB? My hookup in the homeland, and the greatest set of abs ever? So I got an email from him last month (a mutual friend told him I might be coming 'round to Korea this summer, where he is working for a company that sells ... velvet), which I didn't respond to until yesterday, and he wrote back today and it's the same old silly bantering and -- yay! Squeal! Hee hee!

Also, velvet. Ha. Ahahahahaha.

I mean, whatever. I'm over him, and I really do mean that. But you need a little drama in life. Which reminds me, I still have to break up (formally) with Friend. (Although if the last time you really talked was two weeks ago and you live 10 feet away from each other, wouldn't that be a clear enough sign?)

And today, it was 59 degrees in Anchorage (that's in Alaska), and 48 degrees (feels like 40) here in Crimson City.

And I've realized that I'm not smart enough to understand these doctrines or to keep the cases straight in my head. God, I will be so glad when this competition is over.

Okay, no, boring as hell.

Like the thinking and writing, hate the topics I have to think about.

Also, I don't understand them.

Let it be known that it is 44 degrees Fahrenheit (feels like 35) in Crimson City today. It is 50 degrees (feels like 48) in Anchorage.

Let it also be known that I am enjoying the law review competition. Shhhh.

It's the third or fourth grey day in a row here in Crimson City. Abnormally cold -- a disheartening 42 degrees when I got up today.

Def and Stave are here this weekend, house-hunting. I saw them yesterday for a few hours and was very much encouraged when I realized (again -- I keep forgetting it here) that in the normal world of adults and life, maturity and consideration are valued parts of human interaction. They came by the dorm to borrow my computer for a bit, and they remarked (as all my friends have done) how young the people in the hall seem. And so they are.

This is something I know and yet need constant reminding of in order not to fall into a deep blue funk about the disconnect I feel, and the loneliness, at times. Right now is an appropriate time for disconnect and loneliness; the hall has virtually emptied out, Joiner is at home this weekend, and I have been feeling very strange and annoyed and teary about Friend. I barely thought of him at all during reading period, and then finals came and finals went, and it's been very awkward and weird. Remember the knocks on the door a couple times a day? Gone. it's really remarkable how little you can see someone who lives within 10 feet of you.

In my mind, whatever "relationship" Friend and I had is over and gone with -- I can't date someone who makes no effort to see me. It does make me sad, and annoyed at myself for having gotten in this situation.

The law review competition is well on its way, but I've been hanging back in the rear end of the car, intimidated by the 8-hour-a-day goal that others have set for themselves. It feels rather hopeless, even if the topic is interesting. I've got exactly five days left, but the amount of work to do seems insurmountable.

I really should stop reading E.B. White essays over lunch. They are so beautifully written, but I seem to read only the deeply depressing ones. Today I read a short one while eating my mac and cheeze (soy cheese!). It was about his move from one New York apartment to another, and summed up the feeling of loss associated with moving: "And in every place he abandons he leaves something vital, it seems to me, and starts his new life somewhat less encrusted, like a lobster that has shed its skin and is for a time soft and vulnerable."

It is really depressing with no one around.

On Wednesday, after I turned in my 8-hour take-home crim exam, I felt stupified and unable to muster the energy to party, so I went to my room, crawled into bed, and watched "About A Boy," which cheered me up tremendously. When I emerged around 7 pm, I found others in various stages of drunkenness.

I sort of regretted not being part of the drinkage, but I don't think I could have managed -- and I probably would have ended up crying after a drink or two, seeing as how I was in that sort of state.

I did go out around 9 that night, to a quiet little restaurant with Joiner, who despite her cava-induced headache, rallied and went with me.

The next night, though, I made up for it. The Destroyer called me up and asked if I'd be interested in getting some people together for drinks at some bar another classmate of ours wanted to go to. Sure, sez I, and pleased was I -- I was feeling pretty lame about not having partied it up, and the Destroyer is nothing if not charming.

Anyway, it ended up being only me, the Destroyer, and Clark, and it turned out the bar, which was really a restaurant, closed at 10, and so we wound up at a typical Irish bar with an atypically outstanding Irish barman, who commented variously on our choice of drinks (they were having scotch - ew), politics, working as a bartender in the Middle East, his African girlfriend, and his tattoos. He called me girl. As in: "An' what'll you be havin', girl?" Hee hee.

So the three of us drank our way through a total of four scotches, six beers, and some Chambord-and-vodka concoction that the barman gave us for free (and drank with us), and man, were we happy by the end. The Destroyer declared a need for fries, so the barman called us up a cab and we went to some greasy spoon .... er, place (calling it a diner might give it airs) and scarfed down fries and pizza. (I must mention that I was outside for a smoke when they got their orders and they came outside to keep me company, which was sweet.)

We then considered going dancing, but the place we looked at had a line, so we went to another bar, where Clark ordered me and the Destroyer to share a beer, if we couldn't drink a whole one by ourselves, which -- dang, Clark. Should the room be spinning like that? And then it was 2 am, and we went home, which means that in the cab ride back to the dorms, the Destroyer and I made a bet about something in Casablanca, and then we had to view it and I was wrong, which means that I have to come back to law school next year. Or something like that.

Ah, good times.

I went to sleep around 3 am, and woke up 6 hours later (still drunk) to do mediation an hour away. (Funny, one of the parties was an Irish man.) Everything's better when you do it drunk! Yeah! Or something. I went out for lunch afterwards at a beloved burger joint around school, and then Joiner and I went shoe shopping (she got two pairs) and clothes shopping, where I spent all the money I got from selling my books back to the school. What with the drinking and the shopping, I have spent way too much money this week. But the good lord knows you gotta have fun.

Today I start the law review competition, which means I make my way through a 6-inch stack of materials they gave us, write up a comment about a Supreme Court opinion, and edit a 30-page piece. Is it going to be boring? Yes. Is it my duty to do it? Yes.

So, the next week will be filled with doing this competition and packing. Most of the hall has left already. After this weekend, only 4 or 5 of us will be here, doing the review. I can't believe the school year's over, but the empty dorm rooms, doors propped open for the cleaning crews, look exactly the way they looked -- stripped, bare, devoid of personality -- when I arrived here nine months ago.

I ... I don't know about these past nine months.They were hard to get through. And I'm not sure what I gained, or if I gained anything (besides the 10 pounds). I think of my 2 years in Korea as hard too, but among the best years of my life, and filled with valuable lessons and memorable people. I like my friends here at Crimson. I've had some good laughs, some jolly times. But compared to being abroad, it all seems a little dull. I guess that's just the way it is when you come back to your regular life.

To everyone who helped me get through these difficult 9 months, thank you.

Thank you for the phone calls, the emails, the cards, the visits, and the excursions out of the confines of Crimson Law School. They helped me keep perspective and sanity in struggle-some times.

If finishing a year at this place was an accomplishment, it was a feat of many, not just one.

Gratefully yours,

hk

Oh, the horror.

Is over.

1L year is over.

The last final -- she is turned in (5 minutes ago).

Torts, I shall burn you.

And crim. Ah, crim. So grim. So long (8-hour take-home) and yet so short (word limits shorter than the goddam questions).

I feel so shattered for a few hours after these finals. Out of the five this year, I've felt good about two, both first semester. And yet there's no indication that feeling good about an exam has anything to do with doing well on it. Or that feeling crappy about it has anything to do with doing badly (one of my A minuses last semester was on a test I cried about after it was over).

So we'll just bank on that about the awful feelings I have about my exams now.

But oh, the horror. It is over. The soul-crushing, the morale- and morals-drowning, the de-personalization, the infantilization, the terror of Socratic, the learning of the new language, the hiding of the ball, the kick in the nuts to Emotion (delivered by Logic), the boredom, the dorm, the snoredom, the whoredom. (Well, not the whoredom. On Campus Interviewing next year -- and all the better to bring young 2Ls into the corporate fold, my pretty!)

Over.

I'm studying torts in a dim room in a classroom/office building on campus, and I'm most of the way through a bag of mini chocolate chip cookies tied with a black ribbon with polka dots and sealed with this message:
-----------
We know you're studying,
giving it your all.

Here's a sweet break...
hope to see you next fall!

Jekyll & Hyde Law Firm
-----------
I found it in my student box yesterday. Oh, the recruitment! It's wrong. It's so wrong.

And are Crimson College Law students REALLY all that? I gotta wonder.

I read an interesting law review article for my Famous Minority Professor class (I gotta hand it to her, she at least knows my name) that postulated that one of the reasons why so many Crimson law students end up in corporate law is that the firms want us, and we know it. After a first year of anonymity, blind-grading, single-test-focused measurement of performance, large classes, and (some) ridiculous corner-of-the-eye competitiveness (there's guy in my section who won't share an A answer from last year's test with even his closest friends), the ego-stroking and arched-back purring that accompanies corporate recruitment is a balm to the weary second year's soul. They like us! They want us! Finally, some recognition that there are rewards to this alienating, de-personifying, boring-ass, straining-out-of-emotions-and-morals process!

It's an interesting thought. I get concerned, you know, about being drawn into an environment where the intellectual satisfaction justifies a disheartening lack of concern for social issues. (Oh, Famous Minority Professor! You and your critical legal studies ways have gotten to me!) I'm SO not an activist. And I know there are lots of ways to contribute to the betterment of the world, to the lives of other people: donations, for one. And it's easy to be too simplistic about this, because even the classic "villains" of white collar American society, corporations, provide jobs to people, make the wheels of this capitalist world go 'round, etc. There are all those arguments that capitalism and democracy skip alongside each other, hand in hand.

Eh. I don't know about all that stuff. I just hope I do more good than harm in this world.

And now, it is time for me to go back to studying torts. I got a bad feeling about this test. Me and economic and philosophy don't get along too good. And I left too little time to study -- made the classic mistake of spending too much time on the first topic I studied (crim) AND approached this test the un-smart way: instead of looking at old tests first, I stupidly went through all my notes. ACK. Bluagh. Screwed!

(But I'm gonna get a six-figure salary job as long as I don't fail, so what does it matter?)

(Oh god. Shut UP.)

Am drowning in finals studying, so hence -- lack of entries. Sorry, but not as sorry as I am. Wait... did that make sense? Clearly not.

I finished up going over my crim notes today and skimmed over a practice test, which was SO. HARD. Like, IM. POSS. IBLE. And that's not including the incredibly short word limits -- the damn questions were as long as the desired answers, I kid you not. Man, I got a baaaad feeling about this.

Have spent the past five days going over crim, so tomorrow I MUST move onto torts, which is on Monday. Ah, torts. If only I liked econ and philosophy. I'd be loving that class. Malheureusement, mes petites chou-chous (my little nightmares?), I hate both -- econ was my only pass-fail class in college (and I used to steal the answers for problem sets from Mr. Rocks) and I never took philosophy (which in retrospect was a damn good idea). I think I have less patience for theory as I get older. I just want to take Theory by the shoulders and tell it to "Shut UP! Get REAL!" while shaking it violently and periodically bitch-slapping it.

Panic, panic, panic. Stress pains have set in already (manifested as roving painful spots on my head and occasional twinges in the neck and ears). But otherwise, it's okay. Still four days til the first final, after all. Plenty of time to really learn negligence theory, strict liability, and uh, whatever else torts is about. Insurance? Ah, who freakin' needs that stuff? Me and big bro grew up without medical insurance, actually, which sounds horrifying, I know, but when you never had a broken bone or tonsilitis or anything worse than a scratch, you don't think of insurance as all that. We were lucky kids. Or careful. Not sure which.

I AM sure I need to stop blabbing on here and get me to bed. Torts awaits in the morn.

Riffs on a Sunday night...

(1) I am so bored. Not only am I positively bored by the stuff I am doing (crim, torts), I am negatively bored by the stuff I am not doing (learning anything fun, interacting with different people).

(2) I can't believe it, but at the age of 29, I have a crush on my TA. This is SO college. Which was 8 years ago.

(3) Many years ago, when hk was a young chiclet in DC, she had a crush on a Harvard lawyer. hk's mum said, "Congratulations," since it is every Korean mother's dream to have her children either become Harvard lawyers/doctors or marry one. Now, it appears that hk is actually dating a Harvard lawyer (or law student, to be precise). A couple weeks ago, Friend actually did say yes, let's give it a try. (Well, he didn't actually say it. I asked him, as I have periodically this semester, "Have you got an answer for me yet?" and he said, "How's this for an answer?" and kissed me. Which I guess is ... yes. But which is also ... unsatisfying. I know, I know, I'll never be happy.)

I didn't mention it before because it seemed too amorphous and unclear to say. I'm still not quite clear on where we are or what we are. It merely seems that the hook-ups are now legit. Or something.

MattSal was right -- if you're hanging out a lot and hooking up on the side, what does it matter what you call it? It's dating per se.

(4) And finally, a complaint about Crimson College Law Review, the most prestigious law journal of the most presitigious law school in the country. This year, the board of editors was 75% white, 25% minority (10% East Asian, 7% South Asian, 7% black, and 1 Hispanic editor). The ratio of men to women: 73% male, 27% female. Considering that you have to be on law review to become a Supreme Court clerk or a professor, this is supremely depressing. Considering that the Crimson College Law School is currently 56% male and 44% female, this is mysterious. Considering that the school is 54.3% white, 10% black, 12% Asian American, 5.3% Hispanic American (and 14% unknown), this is out of whack.

It's easy to say, hey! that's wrong and we need to encourage women and minorities to apply, and there needs to be special affirmative action spots (there are), and women need to actually turn in the application (they often don't, out of lack of confidence), but it's harder to say, hey! there's something going on here that clearly favors white men, and that's disturbing, but only because law review is THE key to superstardom in the legal world, and why in the world is that the case, anyway? Why not mad advocacy skills, or devotion to public service, or the ability to motivate communities? You can be quite successful without making it onto or even trying out for law review, but why does legal superstardom hinge on your ability to digest a Supreme Court opinion and write a comment about it (the application)? Why should women and minorities try to squeeze themselves into a model of superstardom defined and created by white men of yore, when we could be questioning the model itself?

Sometimes I think we ask the wrong questions.