HAPPY OCTOBER – OCTOBER IS THE MONTH MASTER RACE

Time to dust off the ole’ Blog.

While I’ve only been absent for 17 days, that’s still one of the longer periods I’ve went without posting. Maybe that will become the norm, I dunno, see generally The Rules. Sometimes I don’t feel like blogging, sometimes I have nothing to blog about, and sometimes I have things to blog about but just don’t have the time. Lately I’ve found myself firmly in category three. But before I start complaining about how busy I am, let’s revisit some fun things.

For instance, it’s now officially Fall! 😀

I love seeing the leaves turn into orange beer bottles.

With fall comes not only beer, but other delicious Fall beverages, such as the Salted Caramel Mocha from Starbucks.

The extreme unhealthiness of the frappuccino is balanced out by my water.

But really it’s mainly about the beer. Such as:

1. Samuel Adams Octoberfest – Boston Beer Company

While it’s true that I broke down and started drinking Oktoberfests before Fall even started, Samuel Adams is such as staple of Oktoberfests that its hard to declare the start of “Beer Fall” until you’ve had one (or six, or twelve, or sixty).

2. Post Road Pumpkin Ale – Brooklyn Brewery

Another trend I’ve been happy to see in the past two years or so is the rise of the Pumpkin Ale. Sure it’s been around for a long, long time, but pumpkin ales have gotten more popular in recent years. The thing about a pumpkin ale is that it is an easy beer to make, but a very difficult beer to make well. The biggest problem is that often the alcohol is just too potent in the flavor profile (such as with Dogfishhead Punkin Ale). However, this particular Brooklyn offering got the balance just right, and its probably one of the better pumpkin ales I’ve had. Once again, Brooklyn does not disappoint.

But it’s not all been Fall beers.

3. Heineken Light – Heineken Netherland B.V.

I’ll be completely honest, Heineken Light is not a great beer. But its a good light beer, and more importantly, its a beer I can drink when I’ve been having heartburn issues (e.g. very badly the past few weeks) without much issue.

4. Kirin Ichiban – Kirin Brewery Company, Limited

Kirin Ichiban is an American Pale Lager, made in Japan. Yeah. So basically its Japanese Budweiser, except its not. I had this for the first time during a sushi-making party with Aunt Train about seven years ago. It was just ok then and it is just ok now. I can think of no real reason to drink it over Budweiser because Kirin Ichiban is more expensive. HOWEVER, it does get bonus points for having the word “Ichiban” in the title – as SB, BIL, and I once drove MIL to the brink of insanity by saying “Ichiban” over and over during a trip to Illinois. Ah memories – in drinkable form!

If you remember my weird pie you’ll know that Fall tends to put me into a bit of a baking mood. So I went for another round of baking, except this time it was a little less throw together. The ultimate result was a Pumpkin Oreo Bread/Cake. Yes, it was good.

Nobody knows exactly what lies within aside from Oreos and pumpkin puree – no really, I have no idea what else I put in there.

Speaking of food, I had some family out visiting the New England area, so we met up with them and Aunt Train for a yummy dinner at La Famiglia Giorgio’s in the North End. Now, while I am on the record as stating that I think Italian restaurants are grossly overpriced (a sentiment I stand by), this was some of the better Italian I’ve had in awhile and the portions where VERY generous.

This shrimp and scallop angel hair pasta fed me for 2.5 meals, while SB got like 4 meals out of her dish.

Oh and of course I got beer, if it wasn’t obvious from the fact that there is beer right behind my food in the above photo. The thing about Italian places is that they often don’t have the best of beer selections. That said, Giorgio’s was pretty decent.

Oh, except for one small detail. All of those are bottles or cans. Not a single draft in the entire house. I was not thrilled, but its not like a bottle or can ruins a beer. I’ve had beer from cans that was far better than a beer on draft, for instance. But the point is: “Going out and paying a lot for beer = I want draught.” But I wasn’t paying, lol. So my beerfag emo rage lasted all of 2 seconds and I quickly settled into:

5. Hoppy Feet – Clown Shoes

Yes, a beer called “Hoppy Feet” by a brewery (from Ipswich, MA) called “Clown Shoes” – how could I not get it? It was a delicious Black IPA.

6. Indie IPA – Cisco Brewers Inc.

I actually wanted to go with a white IPA (Wasatch Ghostrider White IPA), in order to get that black-to-white IPA contrast (which I’ve never had before) but naturally they were out of it. However, not one to be thrown off I my beer tracks, I quickly diverted course onto a standard IPA. This beer, from Nantucket, MA was a nice “mid meal” beer, though I’d like to have tried it in a bottle.

7. Birra Moretti – Birra Moretti (Heineken)

By the time dinner was winding down (and I was quite stuffed) I decided that I need to try at least one Italian beer, since we were, you know, eating Italian. I went for Birra Moretti (not realizing that it was actually owned by Heineken – but hey at least its made in Milan, Italy), which turned out to be a nice end-of-meal beer, but was pretty average compared to the Hoppy Feet and Indie IPA. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t super memorable either.

Back on the Fall track – Fall is good for more than just food or beer, it’s also good for football. Sure, football is hard to separate from food and beer, but it’s still its own category. Fortunately SB and I finished up Breaking Bad (2nd time for me, first time for her) before too deep into football season since we rarely have time to watch both a football game and a show. However, not all football we watch is professional, in fact we watch a fair amount of college football these days (and by watch I mean have it on while we do much less enjoyable things than watch football). So, since last year we had watched Harvard slaughter Columbia, this year it was Boston College’s turn. It turned out to be quite a nice day for football.

Whereas Harvard’s athletics are fairly secondary, BC on game day felt much more akin to the “Big Ten” experience I’m used to (or at least used to living next too).

BC was taking on the Northern Illinois University Huskies. It was also “Parents Day” weekend for the babies.

While our seats weren’t to the caliber of the 50 yard-line front row seats we’d had at the Harvard game, they weren’t bad either.

The game started out pretty slowly, as in, very slowly. During this time we spent more time trying to spot and keep an eye on Baldwin the Eagle than we did watch the game. However, things did eventually pick up and got pretty interesting! In fact the final score was 17-14 with BC coming out triumphant.

Unfortunately by the time the game was over our side of the stadium was in the shade, so I was freezing (I was actually shivering) thanks to Mr. Reynaud – but once I was back out into the sun things weren’t too bad. All in all it was a fun day and our team won!

So, that constitutes most of the fun stuff I’ve done in the 1/2 month the blog has been silent. Unfortunately there has been a lot more “not fun” stuff.

2L has been incredibly busy. I mean, as crazy as this is to say, it’s been more busy than 1L. Now, it’s not been the “OH MY GOD I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO” kind of busy-Hell that was 1L. But rather the “OH MY GOD I KNOW WHAT TO DO BUT I NEED 50 HOURS IN A DAY” kind of busy-Hell. To be fair, this was exactly what I was told to expect.

In fact, over a year ago I mentioned this old adage:

1L: The first year they scare you to death
2L: The second year they work you to death
3L: The third year they bore you to death

Now that I’ve entered the second category, I can definitively say that so far the saying is holding up very well. 1L sucks because you have no idea what is going on. Then, because you are on a sinking ship of anxiety and misery in which everyone is forced to compete with each other, the whole thing just kind of explodes. You are busy, yes, but its sort of a whirlwind scenario. 2L you have a much better idea of what is going on (e.g. you have started to give no shits about the small stuff). The thing is, 2L is also when you start to “specialize” – and because you are specializing, you start taking on A LOT more work in a specific area. Now, in theory, the idea is that you’ll enjoy the work, even though there is more of it.

Yeah that is a nice theory.

And maybe it would be true if you could just focus on the stuff you like. But you can’t. You still have loads of other responsibilities. So while its not really a whirlwind train-wreck like 1L, it’s still an overloaded night train barreling down the tracks with a ghost crew. So, if I spent 1L worrying about things. I’m now spending 2L doing things. The result is that I have no real time to myself. I’m not just saying that either. Sure, sure you say – “but you’re sitting here writing a blog post” – yes, fair point. But it’s been 17 days since I touched this blog and I haven’t been doing the “me-time” things I like to do on the weekends, because I just haven’t had the time. For instance this past weekend I practically missed the entirety of the Blood Moon Eclipse (even though we had clear skies) because I was so busy. I was able to see a bit of it, but of course my phone sucks at pictures after 4pm, so it just looks like a blob.

Spooky once-every-twenty-years blood moon super eclipse, or street light? The world may never know.

My lack of time is mostly cumulative, rather than stemming from one specific thing. For starters, classes have been consuming more time than I would like, one of my seminars is consuming far more time than I think it should for a two credit class. Then there is just all the time spent trying to parse more complicated material.

If you’ve ever wondered what a Harvard Law education looks like, this is it. Yes this is a real photo of the chalkboard from Environmental Law. This was used to explain a complicated statutory issue of preclusion vs. preemption within federal common law nuisance claims at the state level.

Now, to be fair, my Environmental Law professor is actually really good. But her chalkboard “diagrams” well, I just had to share one, that is how bad they are. But really, the time black-hole has become my clinical work. Unfortunately I can’t talk much about it on the blog BECUZ OF MUH PRIVILEGE [TRIGGER WARNING PTSD-FROM-THE-INTERNET MICROAGGRESSIONS SAVE-ME-TUMBLR]. But really, it actually is confidential information. However, what I can say is that the project I thought I was getting, was not the project I got. So I wasn’t super pleased about that. I’m still getting substantive experience, it’s just eating my waking hours like a termite. But such is life, at least I’m part of an organization that does good stuff, like figure out ways to get zero-cost solar panels.

Then, you throw in the journal (including my essentially-forced promotion) and then there just isn’t a whole lot of time left in the day. While having “slaves” (as Tristen would say) on the journal now is kind of nice, the increased workload for me personally is not offset by the addition of minions.

Then the school stress has been compounded by the fact that SB and I’s “luck” has officially ran out as far as neighbors go. While we’ve historically had some issues with the person below us, be it extremely loud phone conversations or BLARING music, it was never too late at night. Fortunately she hasn’t been too bad the past couple of months. However, a swarm of obnoxious #&*@ moved into the building adjacent to us and have proceeded to make so much noise (including one girl’s soul-curdling laugh that makes you want to curb-stomp her) over the past three nights after 10pm that we can’t even hear our TV over them. They also have a lamp that is so bright and pointed straight into our window that I can reflect it  back with a mirror. We’ve already called the cops once on them. I have a feeling it will not be the last time.

Of course, the silver lining to all of this back-to-school stress, is that I at least I’m back to getting lots of free food.

That will be 55,000$.

Free food always makes things better. Of course there is no such thing as a free lunch, but at least my grant actually got increased this year! Woo slightly less poverty! 😀

Until next time,
-Taco

P.S. – Squirrel