Taco – Page 14

Spring 2017

May 12, 2017 by Taco

Goodness, a lot has transpired since Pig’s Birthday! I just got back from my first trip to the dentist in 3.5 years (and likely last for a few more years) so I figured I’d try to catch up on my blog. It’s kind of a given that my posting game-plan isn’t really going to work out, at least not how I intended it to. So, I figured I’d just lump a bunch of stuff together into a “Spring 2017” post. I guess spring doesn’t technically end until June 21st, but I can always come back and change the title of this post to “Spring 2017 Part 1” if the need arises.

Anyways, as a brief overview of what I’ll be covering today: I’m done* with law school (though not yet graduated), it’s spring, our spring has been mostly cold and rainy so far, Easter happened, Meem visited, I finished my exams/project/paper, and am in the first stages of studying for the bar (in fact I should have started on Monday). I won’t really be covering things in that order, that just so happens to be the order I thought of them.

*done in the sense that I am done with everything I know about – RA or journal work could lurk behind any corner.

Anyways, when we last met it was this little fellow’s 2nd birthday!

Since then, a lot has changed. For one, spring has gotten well.. ok nothing has really changed on that front. It’s just about as cold and rainy as it was over a month ago. Yay May. However, that has not stopped the industrious Pigsten from continuously acquiring more rocks for his collection.

This was covered last time, but serves a good reference point (he has gotten another one since).

Plus, in fairness to spring it started ok:

Winter activities which gave way to early spring activities have now yielded to mid-spring croquet (but not roque, thankfully) fields in the Science Center Plaza.

Sure, I was mostly inside double-fisting coffee as deadlines loomed…

…but at least the view of the outside world was nice!

Until it wasn’t:

Yes, it has been a very cold and rainy spring thus far. Heck just a few nights ago (in May) it got down to nearly freezing. That said, the plant buddies have not been too disgruntled about it, Quixote especially has gone a little grow-crazy.

Look closely and you’ll see the ancient form of Thomas III.

I haven’t done quite as well as the plants. Part of the problem stems from the fact that I have this weird issue when it rains. Actually, I have this weird issue when it drizzles. Basically, if a single raindrop falls someone in a 1 mile radius of me, my pant legs get soaked. No, more specifically, ONE of my pant legs gets soaked. Here’s a good reference picture. Yes, I’ve gotten so annoyed by this I took a photo of my jeans.

First of all. It wasn’t really raining, that was from sprinkling. Yes, sprinkling did that to my left pant leg. Second, it’s not rain dripping off my umbrella due to the angle I hold it. I’ve tested this extensively, plus it happens without an umbrella. So, it has something to do with my gait. Changing your gait in the short term isn’t too hard, but trying doing it for a mile+ straight – it’s easy to revert to the natural way you walk, especially when your body gives you no indication that anything is wrong (like pain). I’ve found that if I walk like a morbidly obese clown-pigeon and purposefully swing my legs out like a cowboy trying to mount hippopotamus that I can somewhat avoid it, but holly hell, it’s annoying. Once I had a client meeting and it was actually raining, not sprinkling. my dress pants looked like I’d dipped one of them into the tub before setting out. It was great. It’s added layer of additional frustration to rainy days for me.

But I digress, yet speaking of fancy things like dress pants – I had my “formal” public interest student closing event at Harvard. Each year the Office of Public Interest Advising has a formal event for students going into public interest work, it’s basically the only fancy closed-door dinner that most of such students will get (either for graduation or otherwise). Or, as one guest put it “This is the kind of dinner you’d have each week if you’d gone to a firm.” What made it especially swanky was that it was held at the Harvard Faculty Club, a building that I had passed by many times but never (been allowed to) entered.

The event overlapped a bit with my Thursday evening class, so I had to bop out of that a bit early and head over. The dinner was pretty nice. It started with free booze, then a surprisingly painless group photo (family photos are infinitely worse), followed by a fancy dinner. Our seating was random, or maybe it wasn’t, but it appeared random to us. I ended up sitting right next to HLS’s Dean, Martha Minow, who is stepping down as Dean after this semester (which also happens to be HLS’s 200th anniversary. Harvard itself is 381 years old in case you were wondering, the law school didn’t exist as an independent entity until 1817). I also got to attend her “last lecture” later on. Anyways, dinner was nice and considered of a several course meal. Valentino conveniently showed up right around the time the fish came out.

He stayed for the berry dessert too, of course. In addition to food and booze (though they never brought me coffee, still bitter about that) there were a few “set” speeches, but then they just opened the mic up to public interest students. It was pretty cool – though I still like to limit my social gatherings. 🙂

Another nifty thing that happened is Easter! We normally try to do something for the Boys and this year was no exception. As we don’t have a lot of money to spend on basket things (nor do we think its necessary) we decided to spice things up a little this year by constructing a little trail of chocolate “eggs” to the Easter Basket. It should be no surprise that Pigsten discovered the first “egg.”

From there Pig honed in on something different around the Yoga corner – an area he is very familiar with.

Valentino was next, with an “egg” hidden behind our TV.

Tristen and Pigsten then used their T-Rex senses to tag-team against a “regg” hidden in some papers on the printer.

Pigsten then hopped over to my office chair (the boy can jump) and noticed something:

Pig sealed the deal, finding the “egg” on a bottle of pills [no pills were consumed].

Next Pigsten found one on top of the paper shredder – yea, though it might appear dangerous, that shredder has been broken for quite some time and no one really knows why we still have it.

From there Valentino took us into the hallway.

Tristen, not one to be left behind, spotted the next “regg” near the bedroom door.

Pigsten was quick to jump back on the trail at that point.

Pig joined the final-stretch fray as well.

Soon enough, the Boys were at the last “regg.”

And from there they dived into their basket to find more treats – this after eating all the “reggs” they’d found of course.

Their basket consisted of cookies and coffee, neither of which lasted very long.

While they didn’t arrive on Easter the Boys also got some pressies from Grandma Reem’ in the form of some Alternative U.S. National Park Service stickers! They were very excited.

Unfortunately that was the end of super exciting things, at least for a little while. We then headed into the end of semester craziness which was sorted of foreshadowed in list form here. There were two cool things about the end of classes though. First, SB got to come to my second to last class, Mediation, which she – I – and the professor really enjoyed (given SB’s profession). Second, my last class at Harvard Law took place in the same building – Austin Hall (though sadly not same room, though it was the room right next to it) as my first “class” during orientation (lol at my first mention of orientation being in the middle of a Beer Blurb, quite fitting – though in fairness I also discuss it here). After class some people from my Section had a champagne toast, it was cold and rainy, but that didn’t dampen our spirits, or the actual spirits.

So those things were nifty, especially the SB visit. It had been since 2012 that we had last sat in a classroom together for the purposes of learning.

Of course the end of classes does not mean the end of projects, plus it also only signifies the start of exams. So, what is a not-so-little-ole’ Taco to do? Go get beer, immediately.

Lots of beer, continuous beer.

In law school: Not even your beer can escape the fact that you are in law school.

And then comes studying. Whether or not “studying” means studying the law, or reading out of our Gravity Galls journal is a matter of debate.

Eventually though I had to burn the midnight oil, or rather, midnight candle. Which also meant that I had to watch Pigsten – the boy is oddly obsessed with flinging himself into open flames (maybe he is Zoroastrian?).

It’s no secret that I’m a bit of a “crammer” – a style which doesn’t work as well in law school as it does elsewhere. That said, it hasn’t stopped me from finishing things like outlines the night before a closed morning exam, and this was no exception.

But hey, like I said – beer.

The next day, after my first exam (4.5 hours long) I was wondering around the law school and found some signage about all the stress relief stuff going on. You know, I’ve never actually used any of these services (not even the massage, shocking, until you remember how anti-social I am), but it’s nice to know they exist.

The good news was that I only had two exams this semester. One, in-class, closed, 4.5 hour exam – and one take-home, open, 12 hour exam. The in-class exam was for Federal Courts and the Federal System, which was just about as exciting as it sounds (and also quite difficult to boot). The take-home exam was for First Amendment, which is currently being erased by Cheeto Benito, so joke’s on me for taking that one. Anyways, “Fed Courts” was – along with my ever lingering group project – to be the hardest point in my exam period, so it was nice having that over first. Plus, I was even further ahead than I thought I would be because I had experienced a weird super-Taco period of focus the prior weekend and had managed to nearly finish my research paper for another class. Which was awesome, as that brought me down to: Detail work on said research paper, unknown amount of work on a group project (turned out to be a lot), misc. RA & journal work (see top of post), and one 12 hour exam before I was done, and the more I got done sooner, the better!

Why the rush? Well obviously it’s better to be done than not done, but more specifically, Meem was coming to visit! In fact, Meem arrived the night of the same day I took my Fed Courts exam, so I switched into law school “off” mode for a few days in the middle of the exam period, which caused my inbox to inflate to 87 unread messages, but I didn’t care (truth be told a lot of those are now deleted without ever having been read). Meem’s flight got delayed, but we still managed to be in bed by 1am, which is good for us, especially since SB had work the next day.

I also had a morning meeting on campus the next day, so Meem followed me to campus and did a self-tour. After I was out of my meeting I took her to some of the places she hadn’t been able to see before, such as the Ames Courtroom:

As well as the inside of Langdell Hall (law school library). It was technically exam period and you’re not supposed to have guests, so it was mostly us walking in silence to the few places where you can talk, but I think Meem still got some good photos.

We also noticed that the fountain in the Science Center Plaza had finally been activated! After 3.5 years of wondering and waiting, the fountain was on! We had never seen it on before – ever. In fact, “long” ago while searching to see if it even was a fountain, I found out that it has a name – Tanner Fountain – though I couldn’t find any evidence as to why it hadn’t been turned on in at least 3.5 years. Other than the mention of needing “some significant restoration” in a Harvard Gazette article, I could find nothing. So, coupled with recent renovations to the Science Center itself, I’m guessing they finally finished these restorations (though I never visibly saw them working on the fountain). Either way, it’s alive again, and hopefully it lasts through the summer!

I was so excited I had to text this photo SB at work.

Now, as excited as I was about the fountain, the big event of the day was going to see the Boston Red Sox play the New York Yankees at Fenway Park! SB and I hadn’t done this – and to not do so seems kind of like a failure for someone who lives in the ~~Boston area~~ America. SB had been to like 45 billion MLB games before, I’d been to one, and Meem to none. The Boys got a private clubhouse courtesy of Clifford, but Pigsten decided to go “slumming” with us common folk down in the Loge Boxes, which turned out to be really good seats – courtesy of Meem!

Pigsten enjoying some pre-game popcorn!

While the weather hadn’t been great, it was “decent” that day, in that – while cold – it didn’t rain at least. The worst part was when the sun initially went down and the wind kind of picked up, but after awhile (maybe it was those $10 beers?) it wasn’t too bad. At the very least it wasn’t too much for Pigsten, and, like Tristen, he is cold-sensitive.

As mentioned we had pretty good seats, here is a no-zoom panorama of where we were at. Meem got some better photos with her real camera, but you get the basic idea.

As for the game itself, the Red Sox lost, and not only did they lose, they didn’t score once. Plus, the Yankees – who obviously won – didn’t hit a home run. So it wasn’t really the most exciting game of baseball, even by baseball standards – which are like, in the same realm as “paint drying” 90% of the time. HOWEVER, it wasn’t really about the game, as much as the experience of going to Fenway (oldest MLB ballpark) to see the Red Sox against the Yankees. Or, as I put it, “When the Sox and the Yankees play the winner is always… America.”

So, all that considered, it was a great time with mah peeps. I think we all enjoyed it. I don’t know if Pigsten even knows what baseball is, but he liked the popcorn AND because we were Fenway newblets we all got little “Fan Packs” which included Fenway Dirt – yes, though they were technically for SB and I, the bags are now Pigsten’s.

Of course he let Grandma Reem’ keep her dirt, cause Grandma Reem’.

The GOSOX Citgo Sign (it’s a special sign) sticker technically didn’t come in our newb packs, but since I found it on the ground in Fenway it’s kind of like the Park wanted me to have it anyways.

So that was our cool sports experience. SB and I probably would have done it even if Meem hadn’t been able to come out. But we definitely wouldn’t have had as good of seats, nor would Meem have been there, so it was a lot better this way.

Speaking of other cool sports experiences, HLS has its own box at TD Garden and they were offering Celtics playoff tickets for said box…

…but I didn’t take them (I can hear the distant anal clenches from Daryl 2), because 1 – I’d already seen the Celtics, and 2 – the tickets were still $65 a piece. Definitely not bad for box tickets to an NBA playoff game, but still more than the $10 per ticket I paid Harvard for the pleb tickets the first time around.

But back on the Meem visit front, in addition to going out and about we also had a few nights in where we made things such as a salmon dinner (much to Valentino’s great pleasure) as well as chocolate avocado cake (don’t knock it until you try it). We also broke out some cards and board game. Now, this isn’t just any ole’ board game – this is a board which spent a good deal of its existence banned from production.

Yes, Ghettopoly, a game which involves “buying stolen properties, pimpin’ hoes, building crack houses and projects, paying protection fees and getting car jacked are some of the elements of the game. Not dope enough?…If you don’t have the money that you owe to the loan shark you might just land yourself in da’ Emergency Room.” Truth be told, I’ve had this game (courtesy of Meem) for years. In fact I don’t know how long I’ve had it, but Wikipedia says it came out in 2003, so based on subsequent lawsuits my guess is that it wasn’t long after that. That said, I’ve never actually played it. For one, “Ghettopoly” isn’t really the kind of Monopoly you bust out with new friends, or most people for that matter. So it’s kind of a niche version of a definitely-not-niche game. However, Tristen had been begging to play it for years, so it seemed fitting to bust it out when Grandma Meem was out. It was fun, though arguably more difficult than standard Monopoly due to increased penalties (the cost of the “Emergency Room,” for instance, is 250% higher than “Jail.”). It was a heated Ghettopoly bout, with SB taking an early lead, but I pompified and ended up winning in the end (the Boys were on my side and Pigsten probably ate some money in the process, I mean literally ate it).

The next day we all went out for a walking tour of parts of Cambridge. Meem wanted to see Tory Row, so we took off in that direction to start. However, on the way we took a peak inside Memorial Hall since Meem had never been in, and while Sanders Theatre and Anneberg Hall were closed off to visitors (as usual) we did get to see the main chamber with zero people in it – not a common occurrence given Harvard’s status as a tourist attraction.

After Meem took a peek into Anneberg Hall (it was lunch time for the babies) we headed down into Loker Commons (basement) and then on to Tory Row. While I’ve been up Tory Row at least three times before, one thing I had not done was explore Longfellow House – the longtime home of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and before that the headquarters for General George Washington from 1775-76.

The interior wasn’t open for the season yet, but the front gate to the grounds were open, so we meandered around a bit. Meem saw a sign for the gardens and headed straight for it, turns out Longfellow House is “hiding” a very nice little garden area behind it next to the Carriage House. It wasn’t the nicest of days, but a lot of the flowers were in bloom in spite of the lackluster spring weather, so it was still pretty.

From there we continued along Tory Row, before cutting back down towards the Charles River, and then walked that for awhile before crossing the Anderson Memorial Bridge (finally out of construction – and coincidentally the bridge SB and I drove Lillian over a lifetime or so ago) towards the Harvard’s Business School and Soldier’s Field Athletic Area.

Despite having some classes with business school students, doing HBX CORe, and just generally not living that far away from it – I’d never been to the business school (though I’d spent many nights standing at their edge of their campus waiting for a bus after football or hockey games). So this was a first for all of us.

They have quite a nice campus, and some of the trees were bloom which made it even nicer.

The inside of Spangler Center and Bloomberg Center (yep those Bloombergs) was really nice, and had some similar design features to the law school’s Wasserstein Hall, which I guess isn’t totally surprising.

After we were done being B-school tourists (so I’ve now seen the medical school and business school – maybe I’ll see the law school someday) we moseyed over to the Harvard Stadium – which, not only were the grounds unlocked, the stadium itself was open, which was a nice surprise. Naturally I did what any normal person would do and immediately tried to figure out how to get the normally-sealed-off roof of the ~~coliseum~~ stadium. Unfortunately someone had predicted my endeavor and shut me down by chaining and padlocking the only way to the roof (absent flight or Spider-Man abilities).

This was as close as I could get.

The next logical step was to go play on the field, duh. So we did.

We even got some photos of me, me+SB, and me+Meem, right on the 50 yard line, they will come in handy should I ever need to lie about being an Ivy League Football Player.

After that we proceeded back over into Cambridge where we engaged what has quickly become a visiting family tradition: Legal Sea Foods.

Ever since SB, Meem, and I ate here back in the before times, we’ve ate here with nearly every round of family that has visited – though oddly enough never on our own (we stick to things like poor people fish in cardboard boxes). It’s really yummy – obviously – or we wouldn’t keep going back. This time around I mixed things up a bit by getting the lobster bisque rather than the clam chowder.

Of course that is just a way of saying that I also got clam chowder by eating some of SB’s. Both were delicious. For the main course I had (more) beer + scallops. I love scallops, though rarely get them due to cost. Paired with my scallops were mushrooms with rivaled Little Zagreb’s as well as a crispy risotto cake, which was as good as it sounds.

After our delicious late lunch, we headed up into the northern part of Harvard Yard to show Meem the place where ~~half the world’s wealth will descend~~ the first part of my graduation will take place (as of this getting posted – in just 13 days!). Meem took lots of photos of the buildings she hadn’t seen, I took a photo of a squirrel.

All was well in the world.

Sadly, all good things must end, and the next morning Meem had to fly back home, SB had to go to work, and I had to return to school. The Boys were upset Grandma Reem’ had to leave, though they were all happy with their pressies from her:

Tristen obtained a Harvard Law gavel, and immediately proceeded to beat the piss out of everyone with it until Grandma Reem’ intervened – he’s been good since (though Valentino took up the whacking work for awhile [don’t ask about his wrist slapper, JFC] – Grandma Reem’ shut that down as well). Pig obtained a wood carving of Ganesha that he now meditates and does yoga with. Valentino got a Harvard Law School snowflake ornament. Between the two of us, I don’t think he cares about the HLS part, he just loves ornaments and snowflakes. And, not to be forgotten, Pigsten got his aforementioned Fenway Dirt (two bags, no less). Good grandma Reem’ pressies all around.

Once Meem was on her way and SB at work, I set about the bloody business of the day, which happened to involve wrapping up my research paper for good, trying to wrap up my group project (silly me), and studying for the 12 hour exam I had the following day. I accomplished two of those three things, if you guessed the group project was not one of them, then you are someone who is familiar with collegiate group projects – as well as right. Nah, that group project would extend would extend itself to the literal final hours of the formal semester for 3Ls. As reference, per our team agreement it was supposed to have been done over two weeks prior – but, well, again group projects, if you understand, you understand. The good news is that a few of us managed to pull it all together, while simultaneously throwing the other team members under the bus (as they deserved, long story, just trust me) so it was still in on time. So it was productive last week.

Though oddly, my end* to law school (see italic note at the top of the post) was not the BANG I expected. But rather, law school sort of went out as silently as any huge life milestone conceivably might. But that is for a future post wherein I will discuss being done with Harvard Law School – this post is more about the lead-up. Plus, to make things even more anti-climatic, I went from submitting my last assignment, straight into an optometrist appointment where I was told they’d need to dilate my eyes (they did not tell me about this beforehand) in order to check up on a potential optic-nerve condition I am at risk for developing (I’m still a-ok, for reference!). So, not knowing this was coming, I had no sunglasses, so I got to rock those shitty roll up sunglasses they give you through CVS, Harvard Square, and Harvard Yard. Actually I couldn’t care less about the appearance, it just sucked being unable to read or use my computer for like 5 hours after being done with law school. It was also pouring rain, like pouring, so SB just brought food home rather than us going out. WOO Taco knows how to celebrate em.’

So, as has become a sort of Dinosaur Bear tradition (see 1L & 2L) here is picture of one of the Boys next to my stack of materials for the semester – which, as usual, does not include casebooks or the 80 F*CKING MILLION PAGES from my group project class. 🙂

Pigsten still rocks his OG’ Grandma Reem’ bulldozer pressie from our New England Adventure.

Yes that little itty-bitty booklet thing on top is the United States Constitution, yep, that thing you like you pretend you’ve read (or maybe that was just me). Look how teeny it is, seriously go read it.

So, that brings us up to the present! If you were wondering about my first dentist appointment in 3.5 years, no – it had nothing to do with the fact that last time I was in an office it involved having my wisdom teeth removed and anesthetics not working and having one tooth drilled out without pain medicine (I recommend it, loads of fun). To be fair, that was technically the second to last time, as the last time was a follow up. Anyways, no, I’m not scared of dentists, I just don’t really think I need to go to them as frequently as they say I do. Sure 3.5 years is a stretch, but I have no dental insurance. Rather, the dentist was rather just a “catch up” I’ve been doing post law school exams. I also went to (as mentioned) the optometrist for a checkup (my eyes didn’t get worse during law school!) and my general practitioner for a checkup. You know, the whole “not dying” sort of stuff that you don’t do during law school.

Outside from that I’ve also being working quite extensively on what comes next, as well as starting (e.g. being really behind on) to study for the bar, but those are topics for another post, which will come at some point after I close out law school, be it via one combined Graduation + “Muh Feels” post, or two independent posts. We’ll see how I feel, though it will probably be two posts because, I’m also taking a quick trip to New Orleans after graduation as my version of a super-mini (drastically preemptive) bar trip (as comparison SB got to all the way to the frickin’ arctic circle when she graduated – and she doesn’t have to deal with the bar 😛 ).

Aight’ – I think that’s all I have for now. See you on the flip side o’ graduation. Also Dinosaur Bear is almost 5 years old – and it’s almost my birthday as well. Dat’s crazy.

Until next time,
-Taco

Pig’s Figs

April 11, 2017 by Taco

Hello everyone!

I’m in the middle of what is looking to be the craziest stretch of this semester, but that’s all I’m going to say about that. For this post I want to focus on much more exciting things than law school. More specifically, Pig turned two last week! We celebrate quite a few birthdays in the Taco household these days, but we don’t let that diminish the fun. This is especially true since our birthdays tend to be a multi-day event anymore, largely because we are often too busy to limit celebrations to any one day.

Pig is a big fan of spring, which works out nicely since his birthday is in spring. That said, we went through a bit of a rough patch with spring that left all of us sitting inside and twiddling our thumbs (or rather, doing school work) as we waited for the nice weather.

And wait we did. For like a solid week it just rained.

In many ways it was like we were stuck in a weird spring Twilight Zone. On the one hand spring activities were starting – such as grounds-keeping at the law school:

– but on the other hand it was still way too cold.

But not all was dreary, because despite the rain – a certain little piglet turned two! Now, Pig is a creature of many talents. In addition to be a certified Yoga Therapist with over 2,000 hours logged, Pig also likes to wallow in mud – especially if there are grubs in the mud to snack on. Beyond his staple of grubs, Pig is also a big fan of berries, peanut butter, and worms – as well as anything tuber. So, as Pig’s 2nd birthday approached we decided to share a PB&J yogurt for breakfast one morning!

But not content with packaged noms, we then endeavored to make our own homemade strawberry-grape jam! It turned out super yummy – also it was National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day!

And this was all just the buildup to the big day! Pig’s actual birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, which is a long day for both SB and I. So we decided to add some birthday flare to our Wednesday morning coffee date before everyone went their separate ways. I got the idea to add a little treat to Pig’s breakfast.

Truth be told, Pig had never had Fig Newtons before – and it had been many years since I’d had them myself. So I took a gamble and made the assumption that Pig would probably love figs. It was a safe bet.

Pig was hugely ecstatic about “Pig’s Figs,” and he gobbled them down with his coffee, homemade jam PB&J, and yogurt. All of this after a morning run! It was a good birthday breakfast by all accounts. Once our yummy breakfast was over we had to get back to work, and we worked until Friday afternoon where we met up with Aunt Train for (an also yummy) dinner and drinks at Emmets Pub. After getting back home and settling in – the real treat of Pig’s 2nd birthday celebration was unveiled. Dirt pudding!

Pig had dirt pudding for the first time for his birthday last year, and was very excited to have it again. So, over the course of several days SB and I accumulated the ingredients from different stores – with the last ingredients requiring me to walk 35 minutes in the pouring rain on Thursday, but it was worth it! Pig was very happy and we all got fat and pompous from the delicious dirt pudding, with worms of course!

Another nice thing is that the weather has really improved since last week. The constant rain and cold has given way to sunshine and warm temperatures. Over the weekend (while I was in a team meeting, go figure) Pig and SB took advantage of the weather and did some reading in a nearby park!

Another exciting bit of news is that Pigsten has acquired a new “rock” – this time a “gift” from SB. SB had a training at work where they used these little green “stones” as part of an exercise. Well, as soon as SB brought that bad boy home Pigsten cabbaged right onto it, and it has been his ever since! One does not simply bring rocks, or rock-like-objects, into Pigsten’s dominion and hope to retain ownership of them. 🙂

Plus, since Spring is finally here – I naturally had to adopt a Tulip on Plant Nanny (oh you silly person did you really think I wouldn’t talk about my plants? 😛 ).

Tooley the Tulip – while fitting for spring – was EXPENSIVE! She cost 300 seeds, but hey at least her yellow pot was free! Tooley is also the highest difficulty plant I’ve raised thus far, and while I’ve kept her hydrated and happy, progress has been slow. I’d normally be half way through level 3 by now, but Tooley is just chilling on level 2. 🙂

Edit: Well, ask and you shall receive, Tooley just leveled up!

Look at that big ole’ Tulip noggin!

However, from the looks of the progress bar level 3 going to take a loooong time (and so level 4 will be even longer).

Anyways, that’s all for now. I just wanted to share the fun times we have with Pig for his birthday! I have a lot of work to get back to, as I have a big presentation coming up (and naturally it happens on the only day in the whole week it’s supposed to rain) as well as a bunch of other stuff I mentioned here. But, I can’t complain too much with the nice sunny weather we are having for the moment, and Pig agrees – via “Oink!”

Until next time,
-Taco

Twilight of 3L

April 4, 2017 by Taco

“It is always darkest before the dawn.”
~Abraham Lincoln, King of The Prussian & Candy Land Dominions

Welp ladies and gents, this is it. My final month of law school. I’d be lying if I said the proposition of being done made me sad, but at the same time it is kind to crazy to think about how much has changed since I wrote say.. this post. Older and ~~more bitter~~ wiser and all that.

Naturally “last month” hides a lot of baggage. For instance, as of my writing this post I still have:

2 – Informal Mediation Sessions
1 – Formal Mediation Session
5 – Team Meetings
1 – Informal Presentation
1 – Formal Presentation
3 – Reports to Update and Rework
1 – Report to Write
3 – Short Papers
7 – Hours of Journal Work
30 – Hours of RA Work
3 – Client Meetings
18 – Classes
1 – Research Paper
1 – 4.5 Hour Exam
1 – 12 Hour Exam

..left to do.

This is excluding all the minor and/or unforeseen things that can (and will) crop up on or before May 5th – which is the date that I should be done. However, as history has shown me, I have chosen a path which doesn’t lend itself to adherence to silly dates like the official end of a semester, even a final semester. But hey, the upside is that it’s a month – not two months, and once the month is over I am free! … to begin studying for the bar. But that’s a bridge we will cross at a later date.

In the meantime I’ll be attempting to keep stress below meltdown levels and leech as much enjoyment from this last crazy month as possible. In fairness to said month, I kind of knew it was coming ever since like.. January. However, over Spring Break I took a trip to Israel (which involved some activities quite removed from what one would associate with a collegiate spring break). I hope to write a blog post about that trip at some point when I’m not so busy, but I have no idea when that will be. Anyways, once back from that trip school things kind of turn into.. “expected chaos.” So it’s kind of one of those situations where you know what’s going on, but it’s still a challenge to balance it. Pigsten provides a good visual with his Cheerios:

The good news is that it’s now officially Spring! Which means more sunlight and lots of flowers!

And of course that wonderful Spring weather! 😀

Wait.. what?

Yeah that is the correct photo – and in fact that photo was taken on April 1st. April snow, nothing like it! I sort of considered it to be Boston’s April Fool’s Day joke. While I generally don’t mind snow that much, snow in April is pushing my limits. In fairness to SB she got it even worse, as we had a sizeable snowstorm while I was in Israel. That said, not everyone was displeased with the snow – a certain member of the Taco household was honestly quite enthusiastic about the whole affair.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that it was our resident polar bear.

Speaking of cold: I don’t know if it has been the stress from school, stress from school-related things, or the wacky weather but I have ended up with a Middle Ear infection. Yessir, on Sunday I broke down and when to the Urgent Care (only thing open on Sundays) because I’d had a sore throat and ear ache that had been getting worse over the course of four days. Turns out I have an infection, and what timing! I also learned that I have some mild damage to my right eardrum and have no idea how it happened (the Dr. thinks it is Q-Tips). Anyways, I’m now on medicine and I’m not contagious, which is good. However, as usually happens, one of the boys also got sick. This time around it was poor ole’ Pig.

Pig can be seen here doing his trademark sleep meditation.

When either SB or I gets sick one of the boys tends to get the exact same illness. We don’t know if its a strong empathy sickness or a legitimate biological sickness. Either way, this time Pig is sharing my ear and throat misery. However, as a kudos to SB – she went and got us popsicles! Yay! I’m hoping that our antibiotics kick in soon, as you can tell from above we have a lot to do in the coming weeks.

Plus, it’s Pig’s birthday on the 5th (tomorrow)! He will be two years old! SB and I have a couple rounds of excitement planned for Mr. Pig, so hopefully the birthday pig feels better by then (my guess is that antibiotics + restorative yoga will set him right).

In other news, my Plant Nanny garden continues to grow!

I’m kind of obsessed with the app, and am currently up to 268 seeds (the in game currency). Right now I’m helping Charlie the Clover grow!

Update: Charlie leveled up to level 4 shortly after writing this post! 🙂

Big ole’ clover chin and little purple bud buddies!

I was considering getting a Tulip – but it cost 300 seeds which is kind of crazy. I also considered a Snow Bush, but I figured I should probably wait until next Winter to do that – of course the joke’s on me as it snowed two days later. In the end I settled on Charlie, just a few days after St. Patrick’s Day which seemed fitting!

But anyways, I think it goes without saying (again) that I have a lot to do. Right now the most pressing thing school wise is this utterly god-awful group project class I stupidly signed up for. It’s really kicking up starting this week (as if it ever wasn’t eating up a disproportionately idiotic amount of my time anyways). To make matters worse, the professor told us we could submit a report in a certain format – multiple times. But we we submitted it, they told us it was wrong. This after about 50 cumulative hours of work (my reaction). Giving feedback for that class is going to be fun!

“Taco’s Guide to Why this Class Sucks ASS and you Should Never EVER Take It: Volume 1 – There is Hell and then there is this Class”

In seriousness though, the class is terrible. The good news in all of that craziness is that two of my other classes should actually be pretty chill right up until exam time – and then they’ll suck. But silver linings are good things. Another silver lining for April: Meem is coming to visit us! We have some fun stuff lined up and everyone is looking forward to it!

On another note: if you were wondering about what comes after law school – well, that’s a work in progress that has produced some unexpected frustrations, BUT not all is woe and misery. Things just aren’t moving as quickly as I thought (and hoped) they would and there are a lot of uncertain variables – which I guess kind of sums up life. However, that is a topic for another post. Preferably one sometime after I’m done with my last exam. 🙂

As for future timelines here on Dinosaur Bear, the next post will probably be about Pig’s birthday! After that, look for eventual posts on Meem’s visit – probably coupled with a semester wrap-up, then a post about law school graduation – coupled with reflections on the past three years, and then possibly at some point therein or after, my Israel trip. Those posts will drop sometime between now and eternity. 😀

Until next time,
-Taco

February… er.. March Check-in

March 3, 2017 by Taco

So I was sitting down to type up this post and I realized that I didn’t post anything during the month of February. Sure, the last post was on January 31st, so it was “kind of” like February, but still, I figure it’s time for an update.

If it wasn’t obvious from that fact that February slipped away from me, I’ve been busy – though I have to say that on the whole certain things I thought were going to be terrible have ended up not being so terrible. For instance, my First Amendment course has turned out to be pretty laid-back and manageable. The Federal Courts class that I came within a millimeter of dropping kind of sucks, but it doesn’t suck to the point that I thought it was going to suck. And, while my schedule on Wednesdays and Thursdays most definitely sucks, my schedule on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday does not suck (though Friday does a little – but it’s Friday), so having 3 of the 5 days not suck is nice. So, on the whole, most of my classes haven’t been that bad, plus my research assistant position hasn’t been too crazy this time around (after a pretty rough start at least).

Now, lest ye’ think I’m an optimist, I have to say that one of my classes has turned out oh so much worse than I possibly imagined it would be. Why? Group Project. I think anyone who has survived through group projects doesn’t need an explanation of why a Group Project worth 100% of your grade is a horrible, god-awful idea. Not only that, we’re going to make a group project your entire grade AND curve the class. Add in neurotic Harvard students and you have, without a doubt, the second worse class I’ve had in law school (Legal Research and Writing will never be dethroned – which coincidentally also involved group work). To say I uh.. despise.. that class would ~~probably~~ be a massive understatement. Then there is the journal. There is nothing I can complain about with my journal that I haven’t already complained about so, QQ – there, I complained.

But enough about law school, I’m kind of over it and honestly a bit tired of blogging about it.

Let’s talk about more interesting things.

First, remember when I mentioned that Pig was going to adopt our third puffin? Well, awhile back his certificate arrived!

Actually I just realized that I already talked about Grubbert last time. Oh well, I’m leaving it up here because Pig (and puffins) are awesome. Pigsten is awesome too, so here he is again with his quartz. I was going to talk about that again too.

I guess that’s the downside of only booting up the blog once a month, you forget things (thanks citalopram). Oh well, these things are awesome and worth revisiting. What I didn’t share last time was Pigsten’s block party he had on his box.

Pigsten has several brothers and sisters (or friends, we aren’t entirely sure) who live in our bedroom. They, along with Pigsten, came to live with me in Denver courtesy of Meem (though Pigsten didn’t really become “Pigsten” until New Mexico). So they came out to play for a day or so and everyone enjoyed ~~SB’s~~ Pigsten’s quartz.

Speaking of parties, February is special in that it features SB and Valentino’s birthdays, back to back. Which translates into a lot of cooking and baking for yours truly (with help from Tristen, Pig, and Pigsten of course). A running tradition is that SB and Valentino pick out a cake and the rest of us make it for them. This time SB and Valentino settled on a cake with cherry icing and sprinkles!

Pink has been pretty much a constant, as have been heart decorations.

Valentino is 4 and SB is 40.

Pigsten wasn’t quite sure what to make of the cake – at least until he started tunneling inside of it. He likes colors – a lot.

SB also brought home everyone some flowers. Naturally Pig and Valentino wanted to eat them (remember bears eat flowers!) but we got them to hold off for a few days.

We don’t have a proper vase, so we made due with a Department of Justice stein and rubber-bands. 🙂

Pigsten was drawn to the color, the smell, or both. To him the flowers were kind of a magical playground.

As for me, I didn’t get anything right away, but a couple nights later I got back from one of my late classes and found this waiting for me!

A sure fire way to make me happy is to get me beer. I’m not even picky when it’s a gesture of good will. You can give me bad beer and I’ll still be thankful for it. Don’t bite the hand that inebriates you.

Of the new beers in that Harpoon sampler, I think The Craic stood out to me the most (in a good way), though they were all good.

I later expanded my beer stock to go with all the late-night law school work I’ve been doing.

Of course as I type this I no longer have any beer (sad, I know) as SB and I finished off the last two I had for Mardi Gras (in no small part so that we could get the Mardi Gras 2017 badge on Untappd).

In other festive news SB and I took advantage of one of the gift cards Meem got us for Christmas and went to Orinoco, a Venezuelan restaurant with lots of tapas! It was sort of a belated Valentine’s Day date for us. Unsurprisingly it was quite good, considering that SB and I love tapas – especially bacon wrapped dates. In fact each time we have them we normally take a photo and send it to Meem and Daryl 1 to make them jelly.

Delicious.

Another big event in February was that we had our first – and probably only – sizeable snow for this winter.

For about 48 hours things were pretty nasty and a lot of schools and universities ended up closing for a day or two. For its part the law school decided to stay open (when other nearby universities were closed). I say law school, because Harvard University itself was closed. Yes, this made no sense to me either but it’s a thing out here. Apparently the university can close, but individual schools can choose to remain open. The result is that some schools were closed, others were open, and some did half days. The law school made everyone come in during the morning, then realized things were getting bad enough that they shut the school down at noon. For me, in undergrad and K-12 it was always “school’s open” or “school’s closed” (we had half days as well) which applied across the board. Here it seems a bit feudal in that schools are like little kingdoms and they do what they want because its their hot body.

So yeah, lots of snow for a couple of days.

It did that lovely thing were it rains –> snows –> rains –> snows again. So you get the snow with layers of ice embedded and beneath it. As a result I didn’t run for over two weeks while waiting for the sidewalks to de-ice to the point I felt comfortable using my fairly worn out running shoes on them.

But, by and large, snow doesn’t tend to slow Boston down much, so life went on. Heck, from what I heard the T even did decently this time around (for the T, which isn’t saying a lot considering they have the highest light-rail derailment rate in the country).

While a lot of people complained about not getting a full snow day, I was a bit more neutral about it. A lot of it stems from the fact that the ABA requires a set number of hours of class time each semester, so if you get a snow day you have to make it up (depending on the particular class I would say “have” is relative). The downside is the make-up classes are normally at a way worse time of day (super early morning or late Friday afternoon for instance) or in the case of one of my classes they schedule a makeup class and make you do an additional project you wouldn’t have had to do to otherwise. So yeah, the two times I’ve had weather affect my law school schedule it was nowhere near as awesome as similar events during undergrad. Subsequently I’ve been on campus a bit later than normal trying to get some make-up stuff done, plus just normal stuff.

The good news is that no matter how late you are there are some awesome snuggles to be had once you are home.

Once the snow had passed, the weather did pretty much a 180 and got unseasonably warm for about 1.5 weeks and we broke some temperature records (of course now we’re expecting -4 degree wind chills this weekend). In the past I’ve mentioned the skating rink in the Science Center Plaza, well, after problems keeping it frozen last year – coupled with higher temps this year, they just did away with the rink and went with outdoor bowling and curling lanes (though the standby fire-pits + s’mores are there as always).

Skating rink or not, this is a cool central area of campus to hang out at. I was waiting to meet up with SB for our Friday date night and there was ample people-watching to be had during the nice weather to keep me occupied.

They have the area done up with lights, tables, benches, food trucks, the lanes, etc. It’s really quite nice.

Another nice thing was that we actually were aware of International Polar Bear day this year! Since we have a resident polar bear, we celebrated by cooking one of this favorite things – salmon! In fact this was free salmon since a nice manager at Star Market gave SB a demo box to try out. We ended up making sandwiches with it and apple-wood sauce. We had chocolate covered strawberries for dessert. Valentino approved!

He loves him some salmon (and strawberries – and really all berries and fish – and seal, you get the point). Now, Valentino’s love for salmon isn’t the only amor in the Taco household lately. Rosita has recently fallen for a plant named Javier who lives in our neighbor’s apartment. If you look closely you can see Javier in the window across from Rosita.

So we kind of have a Romeo and Juliet drama playing out here lately, heck they even have the initials right. Oh! Speaking of plants, I discovered a super cool application recently. Credit goes to SB for showing it to me and telling me about it. It’s called “Plant Nanny” and as the name suggests, it’s all about taking care of and raising plants. However, what makes Plant Nanny so awesome is that you get to be healthy while you tend to your plants!

The basic premise of the app is that you put in some information about yourself (weight, activity level, etc.) and then the app calculates how much water you should drink in a given day. So, at it’s core Plant Nanny is a water tracker. Yet it’s more than that because it links your plant’s health to the amount of water you consume. So if you drink too little your plant gets dehydrated and sad, and if you don’t fix it your plant will die! Since the plants are super cute this kills your soul and compels you to drink more water.

Look at its little face and little song.

Plus, to make you even more emotionally invested in your plant you get to name it, pick a pot for it, pick a background for it, etc. Once your plant has grown enough, you can plant it in a garden where it will generate seeds for you. Here is my first plant named “Babby Plant,” she is a Devil’s Ivy and is now living happily in the garden and growing seeds.

You can use seeds to buy more kinds of plants, more pots, more backgrounds, and drops of “water of life” (which can either 1: resurrect your dead plant, 2: quickly re-hydrate your dehydrated plant, or 3: speed up the growth of your hydrated plant). Seeds can also be purchased with real money, but it’s entirely unnecessary to do so unless you chronically don’t drink enough water or are seriously impatient.

Of course if you’re a person who already drinks a lot of water (like me, I sometimes drink more than 200oz a day) different plants have different difficulty levels. The more the difficult the plant the more seeds it will yield once its in your garden, but before that it has to be more consistently watered and is quicker to become dehydrated (and die!). Oddly enough the cactus is the first more difficult plant you can unlock – I say it’s odd because cacti are generally pretty easy to take care of (I have four in real life, one of which is 7′ tall).

After “Babby Plant” I decided to try out the cactus (Devil’s Ivy and the Dandelion are free – the next plants cost seeds, but the cactus is only 3 seeds) and of course named it “Little Friend.”

Little Friend and I got off to a rough start. I planted him before bed, and then by the time I woke up he was already dehydrated and sad! 🙁

Fortunately after about 4 or 5 bottles of water he bounced back to his usual self. In the next photo he is singing, though he still looks a little frustrated with me. 🙂

We’ve since made amends and Little Friend is growing big and strong!

In fact Little Friend has since generated his own little friend (so getting into Three Amigos territory)!

As of me writing this, this is what Little Friend currently looks like:

Yay flowers! My guess is that once he hits the next phase he’ll be ready to join Babby Plant in the garden and then I’ll have to decide my next plant friend!

Update: Yep, “Little Friend” is now hanging out in the garden with “Babby Plant” and I’m now raising “Dabney” the dandelion – she likes boxes!

Anyways, I like Plant Nanny because 1) It’s free 2) It’s cute 3) It encourages you to drink more water and 4) If you already drink plenty of water it rewards you with cuteness.

While I suppose the sadness/death serves a motivator to drink more, I don’t like that a lack of water causes the plants look super depressing and sad – and then can die (I haven’t had any deaths yet, but I dislike the thought). Of course you can always use the Water of Life to save them, but I prefer to spare them from dying the first time around. I’ve been told that if you aren’t Jesus it’s kind of inconvenient.

While my plant buddies (real and digital) have yet to made me sad, I did have a sad moment earlier this week when I finally retired my old brown shoes. If you know me personally, or have read about my blue jacket or maybe my 50 cent folders and patched jeans, you’ll know that I value things – as another example the inside of my backpack is held together with duct-tape, but it works. No, I don’t really value the acquisition of things (I prefer experiences) but once I own something I try to take care of it and I certainly don’t get rid of because it’s not “in style” or even “fully functional.” Case in point are my brown, American Eagle shoes from Payless Shoes (not the tweener American Eagle coo-kids clothing store, but the bargin-bin shoe line from Payless).

I bought these before I even visited Boston for the first time. I bought them because up until that point in my life, the only shoes I had really ever consistently owned were tennis shoes, dress shoes, and work boots. Well, there are times when tennis shoes don’t quite cut it, but dress shoes aren’t really necessary. So SB took me to Payless Shoes and I found these bad boys for something like $27. Little did I know it but they’d end up being probably the most used, abused, and trustworthy shoes I’ve owned thus far in my life. What was eventually a budget purchase to try to blend in during admitted student weekends at top law schools (I didn’t) turned into shoes that not only carried me for over three thousand (yes thousand) miles, they also carried me through the snowiest winter in Boston in recorded history (my fancy snow boots came a year too late), and not only that, I’ve literally climbed mountains (in the snow – with no tracks, I don’t recommend it) with these shoes. These shoes also, in an odd way, represent a transition from my pre-law school self, to my nearly post-law school self. I had hoped they would last me all the way through law school, but sadly they reached the end of the road when the big February snow hit. The shoes themselves were fine in dry weather. But the slightest hint of rain or snow would result in your feet being soaking wet (and with Raynaud’s this is an issue, not just an inconvenience).

The problems were many – the soles were separating from the shoe, the shoe itself was cracking open, the inside of the shoe was worn completely through the fabric and over half way through the rubber (it turned your socks black in those spots), but the real killer was that in a couple places the sole got so worn and cracked that it cracked open. As a result, if the ground was wet, whelp, so were your feet.

If you look closely you can see the open cracks in each sole.

For a good while I was ok so long as I avoided puddles (not an easy feet in the dark on old brick sidewalks) but eventually it got so bad that I ended up with wet feet even if I touched nary a single puddle. Starting off a 10+ hour long school day with soaked feet (wool socks can only repel so much) was a downer. Even treating the shoes with moisture protecting spray didn’t help – they were simply too worn.

So, with GREAT reluctance I switched out my shoes for an even more expensive pair of American Eagle brown shoes from Payless. I tried to find my exact style, but unsurprisingly they don’t exist anymore (though some overpriced used ones are on Ebay, no thanks). So I went with the descendants of my shoes which cost nearly as much and.. didn’t fit right at all. In fact, the fit was so off that the size and style I needed didn’t even exist anymore in that line, and it’s not like I have abnormal feet. So I ended up returning those and trying out a pair from Sketchers.

They look similar to my old shoes, I guess similar enough that it doesn’t bother me. They are pretty comfortable, though not 3000 mile broken-in comfortable. That said, I have a hard time shaking my mental image of Sketchers as they existed in the 90s – a try-hard brand “skater brand” with an annoying plastic strip that would make a “zip/clacking” (sketching) noise as you pulled them through. It was the coolest thing in the world to just pull, un-pull, and pull those again and again. It was never appealing to me, even 90s me. But, like everything else from that period, Sketchers appear to have have gotten older, a bit more mature, more straddled with crushing student debt, and instilled with a growing sense of disillusionment.

Valentino expressing his general sense of disillusionment during the recent presidential address.

Ok so maybe they’re just shoes, but the Sketchers I remember didn’t look like the pair I now own, and I am more than ok with that.

Anyways, I have some school work and job applications to get back to, so I’ll wrap things up here. Based on the amount of work I have in the pipeline, coupled with a trip I have coming up, I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me again for another month. But, in light of those things the next post could be pretty exciting even if it’s slow getting here. 🙂

Until next time,
-Taco

Harvard – The Final Semester

January 31, 2017 by Taco

So I have to say, “Harvard – The Final Semester” (an obvious play on the “Space, the final frontier“) sounded a lot more witty when I thought of it 20 seconds ago. That’s a recurrent thing for me, I think I’m much more clever and/or funny than I actually am. The level of misperception may or may not be directly linked to the amount of pain medicine in my system. I’ll let you be the judge of just how much is currently in my system after reading this blog post. 🙂

Anyways, speaking of blogging, I know I haven’t been active recently. While all the normal whining applies, there is also the additional aspect of my blog being downright unreliable lately. I’ve wrote about this before, but basically what happens is that sometimes (I’ve noticed no pattern) I can’t edit my blog in any format, nor can I save anything. What makes it worse, is that while the blog says that it’s saving something, it actually isn’t. So, let’s say I want to add a new post – I can open up the post screen, type an entire post, hit “Save” and then I get the “Post Updated” confirmation message, but then the entire post vanishes (and rage is induced). Likewise, if I want to change a typo or something in an older post, the blog tells me I’ve changed it, but refreshing the page shows that the error is still there, and the number of edits on the post has not gone up. I also can’t add (or remove) any photos. It’s a real pain in the ass and makes the blog essentially unusable. What’s better, the support people (who Meem deals with for me) don’t see any issues. I’ve tried different browsers, going with no addons, trying a different computer, all that good stuff. Nothing fixes it other than just waiting for it to spontaneously start working again. So, there have been a couple of times where I’ve sat down to blog, found out I couldn’t save anything, and promptly said “screw it” because it isn’t worth risking losing 1000s of words over (which has now happened twice). So, in my defense, I’m not only lazy, I’m lazy and inhibited. 😀

So, blog QQ out of the way, I’m now in the Final Semester of law school. Yep, since last post I’ve finished up J-Term (for the last time)! So now I just have one more go-around with this place and then I’m done and gone. Spoiler Alert: I have zero intention of remaining in this area – though in fairness the East Coast probably doesn’t want me here either. Of course life happens, so who knows what will happen. Right now I know I’ll be here until the end of June or July, and I can’t even tell you for certain which of the two it will be – so yeah, who knows (though as I sit here listening to my loud-ass neighbors who enjoy hitting the wall with sledgehammers, June sounds kind of nice). As for school, I’m kind of running out of novel things to ~~complain~~ write about, this is the sixth semester – or if you count our little baby Winter Terms the ninth term. Either way, it’s a lot of law school. That said, I’ve still managed to fill my third year up to the freaking brim (see my post on #3LOL and why it’s bullshit – at least for some of us). Despite all my incessant infantile whining last semester, I went and made this semester worse. Thus, I’ve realized that I’m 1) a masochist 2) a moron or 3) both – I’m banking on #3. Things started off well enough – I even scored a personal victory and dropped a class I knew would be too burdensome – and then proceeded to add a class with even more credits right back in. Still, the number of credits is a piss-poor measurement of the amount of time a law school class will require. For instance, I have a 3 credit class this semester that will involve 3-4x as much work as my hardest 4 credit class will. Last semester I had a 1 credit class that took up more time than a 3 credit class (seriously). It’s better to just go off the professor than it is the number of credits. The TL;DR is that I said I was going to try to have a light final semester, and yeah, I failed – I’m nearly maxed out on credits and I’m still an RA – and now a Senior Editor with my journal on top of that. Truth be told I should be working on RA stuff right now rather writing this post, but shhhhhh, shhhhhhh.

On the positive side of things, if you recall from last time I was really worried about my Tax exam from last semester. Well, turns out I did just fine. As in, I did even better than I ever possibly could have imagined I would do. As a point of comparison, I’ve had a “Low Pass” in a class, at HLS this is the grade right above “F” and is kind of like the scarlet letter. People fuh-reak out about the dreaded “LP.” It’s not caused me much issue as of yet, but I digress. I have thus submitted a “Low Pass” quality exam, and know what it looks like – and I have to say, I thought my Tax exam was way worse than my LP exam. I’m talking way worse. Yet I did great (oh those wonky law school curves). This means that my tax professor either took pity on my kindergarten level exam, or that mostly everyone else also did really shitty and thus the curve was awesome. So I went from trying to figure out how I was going to explain my first “F” since 9th grade to being really pleased with my grades. That was cool. Thanks flying spaghetti monster. I don’t have my J-Term grade back yet, but I’m not too concerned about it – and to be honest at this point I’m not too concerned about grades in general. Maybe I should be since I have no job yet, lol, but I gots’ muh Master Plan.™

Outside of law school and its life-consuming craziness and fabricated pretentiousness and bullshit, things have been a little rough in the personal life sector. Though one counterpoint to that has been that winter has been weirdly mild so far. Actually, while our first winter out here was the worst for the area in recorded history, the two subsequent winters haven’t really been that big of an issue. That’s not just in comparison either, I mean just as a baseline they haven’t been rough. In fact, we’ve seen a whole lot more of this:

…than we have snow (good ole’ Nor’easters). Of course now that I’ve said that, as soon as this gets posted a solid 50′ thick sheet of snow will fall from the sky and level everything in a 300 mile radius [EDIT: It did snow, but far less than 50′ – actually not even 5″]. Either way, I really need to get some new shoes as my current shoes are falling apart – and I mean that literally, water gets in through the bottom of the shoe because I’ve worn them all the way through the sole, but that’s unsurprising for me. We did try to get me some new ones today (Sunday) when we returned some that didn’t fit, but alas they had none I liked in the size I needed.

Anyways, another fun thing is that we have adopted our third puffin (#1 Here and #2 Here)! It was Pig’s turn this time around, and he went with the awesome and fitting name of Grubbert!

Grubbert is apparently a super sneaky 19(!) year old puffin who is hard for the researchers to keep track of. Pig says this is because, like a grub, he is probably very good at hiding (FYI: Grubbert’s sex is unknown, he/she’s just that sneaky)!

I’ve also been regularly partaking of beer since the holidays – as if that is any surprise. In fact I think I’ve had a beer almost every single day this month. FIL sent me some and then I’ve gotten a couple of 12 packs on sale, so I’ve had a decent stock lately. We recently filled up another mason jar full of caps. Here are the boys helping me sort through them.

I basically have a two-part system. I have one large mason jar that I just stick each bottle cap in once I’ve opened the beer. I then have a second milk-bottle that holds unique caps. So each time the mason jar is full, we go through it and pick out the unique and/or less damaged duplicates and put them in the milk-bottle. The duplicates we give away for arts and crafts or for other peoples’ collections, and then the damaged ones we recycle. I’d like to keep them all (sans damaged duplicates) in order to make a bar-top (under glass) someday, but right now we just have no space for that many caps, so we just collect unique ones (kind of like Pogs: Alcoholic Edition). Pigsten is a big fan of the collecting and organizing. Oh! Speaking of Pigsten he recently acquired another mineral for his collection, a big piece of quartz!

Grandma Meem had ordered SB a candle – seen above behind Pigsten – for Christmas (but due to incompetence – not Meem’s – it took a month for us to actually get it) and the quartz came with the candle. Pigsten cabbaged onto that real quick.

So, that’s a pretty good snapshot of what’s going on in Taco land. I’m in the final semester of law school, but it’s not getting any easier (in large part due to my own ability to prevent things from being easy – it’s like disease or something), and life outside of law school is still as weird and wonderful as ever. On the whole, I think I’m very much at that point where I’m reading to move on to the next chapter of my life, and as such am getting pretty frustrated with all the stuff I still need to do to get to that next chapter. If you’ve been following this blog (or even just reading this post) you’ll know that I don’t really know what the next chapter is yet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be excited for it. 🙂

I suppose I should get to work on other things though, so I’ll end this for now. Next time we meet I’ll probably talk about SB and Valentino’s birthdays 😀 ! I’ll also likely whine a bit more specifically about this semester since I’m only about one and a half weeks into it right now it’s kind of hard to complain with the appropriate amount of emo-darkness. If one is going to whine, then one must whine. Now I’m off to get some school work done.

Final Semester Mode: Engaged

Pretty sunrise photo courtesy of SB – because sunrise/sunset photos are always nice, even if not particularly relevant.

Until next time,
Taco

Spring 2017

Pig’s Figs

February… er.. March Check-in

Harvard – The Final Semester

Search all of Dinosaur Bear

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