friday night – Page 5

Week One, Blizzard, Letters, and a Beer Blurb.

February 1, 2015 by Taco

If the title didn’t make it fairly obvious, this has been an interesting week.

Week One

For starters, Spring Semester has er.. started. In classic fashion, it took less than one week for me to become overextended and borderline in an anxiety-breakdown. My blog has had a bit of a “whiny” vibe to it lately, which I don’t exactly like, but things have been kinda stressful, so my blog is just a natural reflection of that. It also helps me to compartmentalize things by listing them out. So, here is the order of things I am going to complain about as far as the spring semester goes, just so you can properly brace yourself for the ample amount of QQ that is about to follow.

1. Fall Grades
2. Spring courses
3. LRW
4. Possible Editor Position
5. Returning to my SPO

On the fourth floor of Langdell Hall, the law school’s library and general pit of Hellish despair, misery, and 100 octrillion-zillion words of law. But the building is pretty.

Fall Grades

So, Fall Grades came out on Tuesday (which was a snow-day, but more on that in a bit). I’m not going to get into specifics. But I will say it was a mixed bag. I had one grade I was really happy with, one grade that I was disappointed with, and one grade that was bad but expected. All in all I came in one grade shy of where I wanted to be. So while it could have been better, it could have been a lot worse, especially considering my educational background vis-à-vis my peers.

And that is all I have to say about grades. They were not crushingly depressing, nor joy inducing. They were just “ok.” For this new semester I hope to bring them up to my goal.

Spring Courses

So my spring course load is, on paper, slightly lighter than the fall semester. Notice I said “on paper.” In reality, this semester is going to be very, very, busy. In fact, if the first week is going to be any indication, I now understand why the ABA makes me sign a thing saying I won’t work more than some miniscule amount of hours in an outside job during the semester. Of my classes, there is only one that actually seems like it is going to be really interesting, and that is of course my elective. Two other classes, Criminal Law and International Law and Human Rights could have been good, but they were pretty much devastated by the professors being HORRIBLE cold-callers. I’m talking, a constant stream of harshbrowns that never stop flying at your face. Plus, the Human Rights professor assigns an INSANE amount of reading.

Now, I must stress this. There is “INSANE” reading for the rest of the world, then there is “INSANE” law school reading. Let’s just put it this way. I would feel safe saying that I read more for one class than most undergraduate students read in 1 entire year of school. I don’t mean how much they are assigned, I mean how much they actually read. I was an honors student in history as an undergraduate. I am no stranger to reading. But this amount of reading is just mind-blowing. In fact, I cannot do it. I have to “intelligently skim” to have any hope of even grasping the 100s of pages we are expected to have on the tips of our tongue.

Point being, my reading load is worse this semester. Then, two of my classes now require essays and giving speeches. Which just adds in to everything else. Of course there are exams waiting at the end, as usual.

Legal Research and Writing (LRW)

I give LRW its own place on the list because LRW is the 10th circle of hell. For all the complaining I did about LRW Fall Semester and PSW, this is literally the worst its been. The ENTIRE SEMESTER (not just three weeks like PSW) is a partner project. Yes. Entire. Semester. You not only have to write a brief (which is not actually brief, as in length, trust me) you have to do freaking moot court, as in oral arguments in front of judges, 2 vs 2. This blows. You know why? Because it means you have to work with an ultra-striver who wants to get everything done (and receive a perfect score, no less) about 300 years before its due. This is in complete and utter contrast to me, who is much more chill about this whole law school thing. To make matters worse, you share a grade. So, my relatively blasé demeanor clashes heavily with their “MUST BE PERFECT ANYTHING LESS THAN DEAN’S SCHOLAR IS SUICIDE” mentality. In other words, it sucks, it all sucks. I hate LRW. It is, by far, the worst class thus far. What is great, is that most law schools only have one semester of it, and ITS NOT GRADED. But nope, I was stupid and went someplace where its GRADED and ONE YEAR LONG. I’ll close by saying that you should probably just brace yourself for me to be bitching about this class until May.

Possible Editor Position

I was extended the offer with my journal to become a Line Editor. Which is basically the next step up the totem pole. On the surface this is a good thing. It means more experience, and more importantly a better line of your resume than just “Staff” or “Subciter.” Of course it also means a lot more time. If you’ve been reading up until this point, you’ll know that I don’t have much of that. I ended up telling them that I would do it if they were short a Line Editor for whatever article I get assigned to. I should know on Monday if I am now a Line Editor or not. Honestly I’m fairly ambivalent about this. If I don’t get it, that’s time saved and I will just remain the bottom man on the totem pole. If I do get it, it will be kind of cool to say I’m an Editor, even if I am the lowest-tier type of Editor.

Returning to my Student Practice Organization

If you’ve been reading the blog for a bit, you’ll remember that I was less than pleased with the administration of my SPO. Its a good organization on the whole, but the time requirements and general dictator-like personality of the supervising attorney left me seriously questioning whether I would be returning in the spring, despite being able to interact with clients and serving a good cause. Well, the decision kind of got made for me, which I was not thrilled about. During the “recruitment” event for the Spring semester (basically where 1Ls who didn’t join an SPO in the Fall and who know realize how important they are frantically try to get in in time to put it on their resume) the supervising attorney introduced me to all those in attendance and went on and on about how I did good work (despite this person very much disliking at least the majority of what I submitted) and how I was going to be coming back this semester. My specific team leaders then were all happy that I had decided to come back. The thing is, I never said I was going to. But, in a public setting when your Boss’ Boss, and your Boss are told you are in (despite this being an assumption) its kind of hard to back out. Sure, I could, but the power balance is so screwed up here (which is a running theme of law school) that I decided to just grin and bear it. If it wasn’t for the fact that I genuinely feel like I’m doing good work (i.e. not making rich old white men richer) I probably would have said no. I’m just going to pull way back this time, doing nothing more than is required to complete my assigned tasks. I care a lot more about improving my grades and my journal than I do my SPO, especially since I didn’t really volunteer this time. The downside is that its even more of a time-drain on my limited reservoir.

But enough complaining about classes, we’ll have plenty of time for that as the semester progresses.

The Blizzard

So if you watch the news at all, you’ll have noticed that the Northeast got a lot of snow last week. Yep.

I didn’t measure myself, but from local reports I think right where we are ended up with around 30″ of snow, possibly a little more. It was a lot of snow, with a lot of wind, really fast. It was another one of my ~~beloved~~ hated Nor’easters. The good news is, we never lost power. Of course a lot of people weren’t so lucky, several tens of thousands of them in fact. Some of the coastal areas were slammed pretty hard, especially when some seawalls broke. But for us, intermittent internet loss was about as bad as it got. We actually got enough snow that I got a snow-day! Which is apparently a very, VERY rare occurrence for Harvard, whose closure policy was once iterated by a Dean as “Harvard shall close in the event of an act of God, such as the end of the Earth,” and no, I am not joking, that is the exact quote. So that was nice, aside from the Friday afternoon make-up class I ended up having to have. I still have two possible makeup classes hanging over my head as well, not sure when I will find out whether or not I’ll have to endure them. I still really dislike this makeup crap. SB actually had two snow-days, which I am sure she enjoyed as I trudged off into the many feet of snow, wind, and bitter cold. 😛

On the positive side, snow removal efforts are way better out here than I am used to. Heck, apparently you get fined if you don’t clear the sidewalk in front of your home. As a VERY frequently walker, I support that law 100%. Even Harvard seemed to be on top of their game, with ground crews fighting the snow good-fight in a very timely manner.

I suppose when you are used to such snow, you tend to be a little better prepared to respond to it. The downside of the good response is salt and chemicals.

In fact, my jeans feel like they are freaking starched to oblivion because of all the chemicals and salt that are embedded in them, despite multiple surface cleanings with a washcloth. But, I suppose that is much better than slipping and dying a horrible death in the skanky-arse street water/ice pits. I swear, those little “dips” between the street and sidewalk have become my mortal enemy. You never know if you are about to safely step into firm snow, or fall through into icy mud water poison.

The fun thing is we are supposedly going to get like another foot of snow this coming week. But, I tell you what, I do not miss a car in this, despite the difficulty of walking.

Packing Letters

This is actually kind of funny. I spent 3 hours on campus today (A Saturday) stuffing letters. Why would I do this you might ask? Well, because I have to. No really, if I don’t do it I get no summer funding for my job. You see, there is this really cool event here at the law school called the “HLS Public Interest Auction.” It raises money each year for those students who pursue public interest (i.e. poverty) rather than corporate work (i.e. 160k a year starting). Harvard is one of the few schools that actually spend quite a bit of money on supporting their PI-focused students and graduates. The Public Interest Auction/Fundraiser is one such way they bring in money. And, if you plan to receive any summer funding (I do), as a 1L you HAVE to volunteer for three hours. Really not that big of a deal considering that you might get up to 5,500$ in funding if you are poor enough (which roughly translates to slightly above a minimum wage job, while your firm-bound colleagues will make about 30k in a summer, lol). Being me, I wanted to get that volunteering stuff out of the way ASAP. So, I meticulously monitored the page waiting for shifts to open, and sure enough once they did I pounced on them. Little did I know that it was on a Saturday, but still, I wanted to get it done. I actually signed up for 4 hours, because the shifts were only for 2 hour intervals (10-12, 1-3, 3-5), despite you only needing 3 hours. Anyways, the gist of it was stuffing letters and forms into envelopes (to both alumni and parents – Hi Meem) asking for donations to the auction or just donations period. There were about 32,000 pieces of paper in total, for about 8,000 letters.

Its funny too, and I think this provides some insight into what people are like here. Remember, this is a volunteer event, sending letters. However, some people became competitive, hording supplies and trying to pack letters faster than anyone. No, I am not joking. There was literally no reason to do this, but they did, because they have to “win” at everything. The thing is, I produced about 3x as many letters as the next fastest person (and trust me, she was not amused by this fact). This is the one time in my life my assembly line skills paid off outside of well, the assembly line. I was roasting those letters, I’d say I was probably up to about 8 letters a minute at my best (keeping in mind they had multiple parts and had to be folded in fancy ways, labeled, and stacked). I guess when you spend a lot of time packaging medical equipment under crazy time constraints the skills transition over to letters. Perhaps this could be a fallback job.

Anyways, the interesting thing is that we grossly exceeded performance expectations. So much so that it was becoming pretty obvious that most people weren’t going to get their 3 hours in because we were running out of labels (which means we were running out of people to mail things too). However, I used some supply strategy, concealed labels, and delay-tactics to ensure that I did indeed get all 3 of my hours in, I was not about to spend anymore time volunteering than I already had, my Saturdays are a commodity. But, it was interesting seeing all the people we were mailing the letters to. There were four piles. “Alumni – International,” “Alumni – Domestic,” “Parent – International,” and “Parent Domestic.” I was assigned to the “Alumni – Domestic.” Since I had to sign a confidentiality agreement (seriously) I can’t say much, but lets just say I sent some very powerful people letters today, haha. Plus, I got in all 3 hours on the very first sign-up opportunity. So while most people will be rushing around trying to get in their hours as the auction gets close, I can just forget about it.

Beer Blurb

And finally, the best part of the post, the part about food and beer. Since I had a makeup class due to the Blizzard I was a bit later getting home on Friday than I like. But it was SB’s turn to pick and she chose S&S Deli, which we had been to before. Its actually slightly over our price range and the service last time wasn’t great, but this time was much better. I mean, the prices were still above what we normally spend, but the service was much better. SB went with the “S&S Chicken Sandwich – Tender fried chicken, hot, sweet and spicy” and I went with the “Citrus Wrap – Grilled chicken, mixed greens, strawberries, mandarin oranges, goat cheese and tangerine vinaigrette” after debating between that and some clam chowder. Both meals were quite good. After that we bumped over to Whole Foods for some treats (Ice Cream for SB and Tiramisu for me) and then over to the Wine & Cheese Cask for some GLORIOUS BEER. After the first week I was definitely ready for some. However, this time SB was too. She is normally a wine person, but since this is Superbowl weekend she was feeling some beer. So we opted for a 12 pack rather than my standard six pack. I also noticed a special bottle on the way out that I just couldn’t resist, so we left with 13 bottles of beer, rather than our usual six. My excuse is football, your argument is invalid.

The Beer:

Samuel Adams Seasonal Collection

1. Samuel Adams – Escape Route
2. Samuel Adams – Boston Lager
3. Samuel Adams – Crystal Pale Ale
4. Samuel Adams – Cold Snap
5. Crabbie’s – Original Ginger Beer

Since this post is getting a bit longer than I anticipated, I’m going to be a little cheap with the Sam Adam’s beers and say that they were all good. Really, the Beer Advocate descriptions are probably just as a good (if not better) than anything I could come up with. I still think its interesting, even as recently as 4 years ago or so I wasn’t really as a Samuel Adams fan, but I’ll be damned if they haven’t grown on me (Partially thanks to FIL and all the Samuel Adams he has generously bestowed upon me). Its especially awesome because I feel like so many more of their varieties are easier to find out here in Boston, for obvious reasons. Right now Samuel Adams and the Brooklyn Brewery are fiercely battling each other for position in my beer world and really the only real sacrifice is that of my wallet and my fatness.

But the four Samuel Adams beers (especially the Lager – since its their flagship) are all fairly “tame” in comparison to Crabbie’s Original Ginger Beer. In fact, Crabbie’s is so weird for a “beer” that neither Beer Advocate nor the lesser-esteemed (by me) RateBeer have reviews of it. I had to venture to the brewer’s website to find much information about it (the rest of what I found was just websites selling it – to surprisingly good reviews I might add). But really, we don’t much care about what others think. I really just link to BeerAdvocate, etc. to provide a bit of a backdrop to my opinion of the beer. This is my blog after all.

So, how was it? Well, before I even opened the bottle I noticed it was from Scotland, the best country on Earth except Murka. So that is a plus. Also, if you are wondering WHY IN THE HELL IS THERE ICE IN HIS BEER!? Good question. But the bottle specifically says that it recommends being served chilled over ice with a slice of lime or lemon. Who I am to question the Scots when it comes to beer? So, I took a drink and wow. Much Ginger, Much Pazazz. SB wanted to try it, and her reaction was pretty similar. I think the best way to think of it is to not to imagine beer, at all, but rather imagine Ginger Ale on steroids. I’m still not quite sure why the ice is needed, but the lemon/lime is clearly to counter balance the “burn” from the ginger. I mean, holy cow, this stuff is REAL ginger beer, not any punanner replica stuff. It actually leaves a bit of a “burn” aftertaste in your mouth, just as if you were actually eat raw ginger. So, on the whole, its not bad, but I wouldn’t go so far to say I’m in love with it either. It does get better as you drink it, that is true, but this is definitely a 0ne-and-done beer. I couldn’t imagine setting around downing these things one after another at the bar. But, I’m definitely glad I tried it and I might get it again in the future, but I do wish the bottle was smaller, I’m not big on “sweet” alcoholic drinks. As far as recommendations go, if you like Ginger Ale and you like alcohol, this would be a hard one to pass up.

Alrighty, I’m going to wrap this up. Its time to go drink more beer and just chill for the rest of the night. After spending three hours stuffing letters, doing some online school stuff, AND doing ALL of our taxes today I feel as though I have done my due diligence for a Saturday. Tomorrow (today, when this is posted) is Superbowl Sunday, which means more beer and hotdogs and homemade tortilla chips and guacamole! We had a bit of a frustrating time with Peapod, from a coupon problem, to a lazy/whiny driver, to items missing, but they still managed get most of the food to us and they did credit us for what they didn’t get (sadly our Dole Chocolate Dipped Frozen Bananas were one of the missing items, much to Tristen & Valentino’s dismay). But, we still got pretty much everything we needed for the big game tomorrow, either through Peapod or Whole Foods, so I guess we can’t complain too much (other than to their customer service, who SB plans to write to). Regardless, I’m looking forward to some football.

Of course that is only after about 5.5 hours of reading and school work, but I digress, its still going to be a good day, its just not going to start being a good day until about 6pm. I just hope its better of a game than last year and that Daryl 1’s husband Tom Brady ends up losing. Also if the Seapigeons win again then Russell Wilson will have beat two of the NFL’s best quarterbacks in a Superbowl, only one of which cheats.

Until next time,
-Taco

B. Good to Yourself.

January 19, 2015 by Taco

So the group-project hell that is PSW marches on. Fortunately next week is my last week and I technically only have three days since we have no class on Friday (since that is exam day and we have no exam) and also Monday is MLK day. That said, those three days are prone to be the worst of the bunch, especially since I have to go downtown to a biglaw office and present a formal project to a biglaw partner on Wednesday night. Harvard of course requires us to do this, but does not assist with getting us there (almost as if they took a page from the DIS playbook). Anyways, this wouldn’t be too bad, other than the fact that I recently found out my suits no longer fit me correctly. See, my natural weight is somewhere in the 160-165 range. I tend to stay right in there when I’m having no weight issues. I’ve returned to about the 167 range, but when I got my suits I was probably in the 175-180 range. Its not a huge change, but its enough of a change that my pants now look like clown britches around my ass. It doesn’t help matters that my back curves in and my butt sticks out, which has made finding pants that fit right difficult for my entire life. Essentially my butt can’t fit in the pants that are the right size for my legs, so my pants in the thigh area tend to be really baggy while my butt is tight. It looks stupid, just trust me on that. Since this is a professional presentation, I have to wear my suit. The good news is that one of my suits isn’t as clownish as the other one. The bad news is that I have no overcoat, so if its raining and/or very cold (I can assure you it will be at least one of the two) I’ll be in a bad spot.

Later this week I’m going to take my suits to a tailor so I can spend more than I paid for the suits to get them altered, but I have to have suits, its just really not an option. Of course this does me no good in the present and its not like I have much money to spend. Especially since I’m going to be picking up 1-2 sessions of acupuncture, which even with my student insurance discount is still 65$ a session. Oh yeah, we also need an ironing board, a travel clothes steamer, and I still have a broken regular jacket (and no overcoat – then the alterations on the suits). We’re going to go start looking tomorrow at Target, but I’m honestly not sure we can afford all of that. sigh

But, mentioning the acupuncture, I was recently told that there is probably nothing that can be done about my legs as far as diagnosing or “fixing” the problem. We’ve pretty much exhausted every possible test there is, and, honestly, I’m a bit tired of getting tested continuously. You can only be stabbed, shocked, and shoved into a tube so many times (with absolutely no decrease in pain) before you just have to say “Feck It.” I’m not going so far as to say, “Ok, I’m out.” But I think I am done seeking endless batteries of tests, at least for now. So, rather than “fixing” something that might not even be capable of being fixed (or detected), we’ve turned to trying to manage and to learn to live with the condition. As such, I’m going back to physical therapy (which is thankfully covered entirely by my insurance), not to try to fix the problem, but to see if there is anything I can do to make it more manageable. Likewise, I’m going to finally try out acupuncture. I’ve looked into it many times, but its quite expensive and its not been covered by any insurance I’ve had so far. Out here I can get it for 65$ a session, which is still far too expensive for me to use as a regular treatment, but I’m going to try it at least 1-2 times. There is also an 8 week long course on mindfulness and meditation offered by my Doctor that I am strongly considering taking. Its 150$ for graduate students and these courses generally run 750-900$ if you take them elsewhere in Boston. I’m currently in a student-ran, guided meditation group at the law school but I don’t do it regularly enough to reap the benefits. So that is where I am medically, its not great, but at least I’m not getting shocked anymore. I’ll try to update as things progress, if I can afford them that is.

Anyways, the title of this post “B. Good to Yourself” is not about me whining about health stuff or PSW or my inability to afford the clothes that my school requires. Its actually about a place SB and I went to on Friday night called, well, B. Good.

By appearance its pretty much like any of the other small food-stations that dot the area. But B. Good operates under a slightly different model, mainly they focus on real, local food. You know, the kind of stuff you grow in a garden but that most restaurants charge 12 million dollars for because it didn’t come in a 5-gallon bucket. SB and I like supporting local farmers, but we generally cannot afford it. Other than some local stuff from Whole Foods, one of the various farmer’s markets, and the occasional jaunt to Savenor’s we are largely kept out by the price barrier. At B. Good however, both SB and I were able to eat for less than 20$ which is generally our goal, but lawds is that a hard goal out here in East-Coast-Land. But B. Good was affordable. When you enter they even show you some of the farmers who provide them with various varieties of noms.

There’s even a map that shows where in New England the various bits and pieces come from.

The food was very good, even the soda is local, coming from someplace in Maine. SB went with a turkey burger (ADOPTED LUKE — mushrooms, caramelized onions, smoked gouda, bbq sauce) and I went with a seasonal chicken sandwich (JOANIE — avocado, sriracha, homemade spicy slaw). We then shared a mixed Maine-Coke/Blueberry drink. It was all noms.

This actually wasn’t my first time having B. Good. Back during something called “Wellness Week” at the law school, B. Good had a truck and were giving away free itty-bitty smoothies. They also had a prize wheel you could spin, I won a… high five.. yeap.

Of course we actually almost didn’t even make it to B. Good, because it was SO FREAKING COLD we both considered turning around and eating someplace closer to home. Of course the upside to such cold is that Harvard took it upon themselves to install an ice-skating rink!

Ignore that ungodly ugly building the background, its the Science Center and it is literally the most hideous building on campus. It was built in 1973 largely thanks to a donation from one of the co-founders of Polaroid, and the rumor is that it was designed to look like one of the early Polaroid “Land” cameras, but I have no idea if that is true. Either way, its freaking ugly. But the ice skating rink is fun! Not that I can skate, or have skates, but still, its a nice touch.

Anywho, that’s about all I have for now. Just wanted to share some PSW, suit, and health-related misery. Remember, as this is my blog I have a free ride for complaining, especially when it comes to not being able to afford things. But at least I have still beer, but its only Miller Lite this week (because cheap). What has become of me. At least there has been plenty football on to watch! (I also made some very tasty turkey burgers to go with the show).

Until next time,
-Taco

[Also, PSA, university bookstores suck. Like when they tell you that you need a book and you actually don’t so you lose money returning the book you don’t need. And also when they lie about their return policies. This is pretty much every university bookstore everywhere. Use Amazon, seriously.]

Art, Food, & Beer

January 12, 2015 by Taco

Its been pretty cold here in Boston, the coldest since we moved out here by a long shot. For a few days the high was something like 6 degrees, which is just not awesome. Since I walk to school, its been a lot of fun getting half frozen on the way there. Its mainly due to Reynaud’s that the walk is fairly crappy. My core body does ok, but my fingers and toes really tend to eat it (and that’s with two pairs of socks and two pairs of gloves). On the really cold days even my eyes hurt its so cold, but you gotta walk to school one way or another, so I just bundle up and deal with it.

Speaking of school, if you remember from last time, I’ve started the beloved “Problem Solving Workshop” that 1Ls are forced to take. I have to say, it sort of split itself between being just “OK” and “My Expectations” (which were obviously very bad). On one hand, I got a decent team that is (mostly) easy to work with. There are five of us and only one person seems to be a major slacker. On the the other hand, the projects are even more time consuming than I thought they would be and the class time itself is pretty terrible. Its made worse because we have no breaks. Basically the class is divided into two portions. The actual class runs from 9 to 12, then you work on your project from 12 to 5. Well, from 9 to 12 we have no breaks, no bathroom breaks, nothing. We also take attendance, Jr. High style. There are two professors (well technically, one professor, the other guy is a practicing attorney), and their assistant comes to class and uses a seating chart to make sure we are there. Its all pretty stupid for a professional course. One nice thing is that my group divided up the projects into pairs, so while we have 13 classes, I only actually have to do anything other than come to class on 6 of those days.

But enough about that.

Aside from the group project fest that is PSW, this was a fairly good week. I secured a summer position and SB secured an internship for the second year of her MSW program. Both of which are very awesome things. So, to celebrate we decided to use a gift card that Meem got us to a place called John Harvard’s Brewery & Ale House.

Its a bit of misnomer, since it has absolutely nothing to do with John Harvard or Harvard University, so they are capitalizing on that a bit, but I had heard that they had good food and beer. The thing is, like most places around here, its a bit above our price range. Enter Meem’s Christmas pressie. Thanks to our gift card we could actually afford to eat there and get some beer, can’t beat that!

I liked the interior, its actually in the lower level of a building so it has a sort of brewery/basement type feel, which I guess is pretty much spot on. After thinking for a bit, we went with a pitcher of the Brattle Blond Ale, which doesn’t appear to have a Beer Advocate page yet, which might mean its fairly new or a limited batch. Either way, it was pretty tasty, even SB liked it. It was a fairly low ABV beer (4.5%) so it was a good one to get a pitcher of when there are only two people (and by two people I mean 2/3 of the pitcher normally goes to me). The food was also good, SB went with the Dunster Burger and I went with the “Old Fashioned” Chicken Pot Pie, which was actually pretty dang awesome for a pot pie.

We also decided to take in a bit of culture this weekend.

That is the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Now, I’m not a huge art person, but I do enjoy walking around art museums. I did quite a few of them in Europe and so I figured it was worth visiting one here in Boston as well. The good news is that its free for students. Well, to be fair, its free for some students. This actually confused us a bit at first. Entrance is actually really expensive (like everything else out here). For instance, standard Adult tickets are 25$ a piece. Then, standard 18+ Student tickets are 23$ a piece, which is of course way out of SB and I’s price range. However, there are what are called “University Member” student tickets, which are free. Basically these are agreements between the MFA and certain (almost exclusively New England) universities where those students get in free. Fortunately both SB and I’s universities were members, so we were free. We’d wanted to visit the MFA since moving out here, but getting busy (and initially being unsure whether or not it was actually free) kept us away until now. So we headed out on Saturday.

And apparently so did the rest of Boston. I have never, ever seen a museum of any kind this crowded. Not even the free day at the Boeing Museum of Flight was this packed. When we first walked in, the line at the ticket counter was huge! I’m pretty sure we spent about 15-20 minutes in line, in an art museum. We actually doubled checked to make sure something wasn’t going on that day, and there wasn’t anything. It must have just been a good day to go see some art. The Goya exhibit was also still there (until the 19th) and since SB had studied Goya in Spain, that was one of the big things that finally drew us out to the museum. But, I’ll get to the Goya exhibit in a minute.

When we first came in we started off in the “Contemporary Art” section. (The museum was divided into five areas, with a special exhibit area [Goya] – Contemporary, Asia-Oceania-Africa, Europe, The Americas, and The Ancient World). There were some odd floating/jumping people in the contemporary area.

We then progressed into the European area, which was much more typical of what you would expect from an art museum.

They had a bit of everything, from Picasso, to Van Gogh, to Monet. One temporary gallery in the halls between sections was a collection of World War I posters. Of course the famous Uncle Sam poster was there, but there were also some I had never seen before, such as this rather grim one.

They even had some from Germany, which I’m not sure if I had ever seen before.

From there we moved onto the Americas area, which had a ton of beautiful old furniture, with lots of paintings to boot.

Of course it wasn’t just North American displays, they also had Central and South American items, including some cool stuff from the Mayans.

By this time we were starving, since we seem to chronically plan our meals poorly on our days out. Or maybe we do it on purpose as an excuse to eat while out and about. Either way, the MFA has plenty of food, four places to eat in total. One of them was in the big atrium in the near middle of the museum, adjacent to the outdoor courtyard (which was currently closed due to the cold).

But, these places were all very expensive. So we followed the sound of crying children and the smell of grease down to the poor people cafeteria in the basement (literally) where we got some over-priced hot dogs and chicken fingers. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. It was pretty clear that the two cafes and the actual restaurant (the image above is one of the cafes) are where they put most of the effort in, and they are priced accordingly.

After lunch we were feeling much better and went on to explore the ancient world area. Like most museums, the ancient world area starts with Egypt.

We were actually surprised by how many displays their ancient world area had. For an art museum, they had quite a bit of stuff that you’d expect to see in a natural history museum. But then again, “art” is a very broad term.

SB got a little nervous in the room with all the mummies and sarcophagi. I enjoyed that. After Egypt we moved onto Greece, which was really cool. They even had some battle gear, including a shield (hoplon) that was still in outstandingly good shape.

Next to the shield were some Hoplite helmets, which were also in really good condition. Most of the one’s I’ve seen before have been quite oxidized (like the hoplon above).

Rome was well represented as well, especially in regards to their pottery (which was blended in with Greek pottery and I’m not smart enough to tell the difference, at least not superficially).

There were also more than a few statutes, ranging from some famous Emperors to this massive statute, which admittedly I can’t remember who it was since we were in a bit of a hurry at that point since the museum closed rather early (4:45).

There was also a fun exhibit called “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” which featured exactly that.

I thought my Dad would probably have liked this room.

The Train displays weren’t quite as big, but they did has one slick looking one.

Outside this exhibit were some huge, very detailed modeled boats. I don’t think they were actually part of the exhibit, but they blended in well with the theme of the adjacent room.

As the museum closing time got closer we circled back through the upper levels of a few places, including the contemporary area. I’m glad we did since we saw the hands down coolest display of that part of the museum, a bunch of bottles. No seriously.

It was a four sided box of glass, mirrors, and glass bottles. Each side was a different arrangement but all four sides appeared to extend into eternity. It was way cool. Then, as we were leaving I noticed a cool painting that I had actually missed the first time around (I was on the great bathroom hunt the first time).

So, about Goya.

SB and I were quite excited. I like Goya’s works, especially his Black Paintings. The museum had also built up the exhibit, talking about the items they had acquired from the Prado, Louvre, the Galleria degli Uffizi, and even some other US museums. The cool title “Order and Disorder” seemed to allude to following a path from Goya’s earlier works to his darker later works. Apparently a lot of other people were excited too. The line to the Goya exhibit was HUGE. It was really more of a theme-park kind of line, I didn’t know art museums generated lines like that. Anyways, we decided to do it, since SB was excited to show me some of the paintings she had seen in Madrid (and I wanted to see them). So we waited in line (watching the Museum members pass us by in their high speed Grey Poupon line). Once we were done with that line, we went downstairs.. to another line.. yes theme park style. Eventually we got inside the exhibit and it was PACKED. I mean, sardine level packed. It was pretty horrible actually. Then, to make matters worse, the collection was.. ehm.. lackluster. They had loads and loads of pieces, but at least 80% of them were just his sketches for the paintings. Sure, these are important, but I imagine you need to be a real art connoisseur to fully appreciate an exhibit like that. To be fair, they did have a few really cool paintings, such as his self portrait in the workshop, and the final painting of the exhibit which was The Last Communion of St Joseph of Calasanz. However, they were very much lacking in the Black Paintings department, all they really had were a couple of sketches of his black paintings. In the end, SB and I both left a bit disappointed, especially since the line was so long and the exhibit so crowded. I mean, I’m glad we waited in line for the Goya exhibit (though if we would have waited a bit later there would have been much less of a line, but we didn’t know that and closing time was getting closer) since I had never seen any Goya stuff before (or maybe I did in Europe but have since forgotten, that is quite possible). However, on the whole, the rest of the museum was actually more enjoyable for us.

We actually stayed right up until closing time, to the point that the people were coming around prodding everyone out of the museum like cattle. The sun was going down and so it was getting extremely cold. We decided to walk the couple of blocks up the street to Northeastern University to get some Starbucks. Well, we never found the Starbucks and kept getting colder so we just decided to head back. Then the Green Line took forever to get there, so I was pretty much an ice cube by the time it showed up. We then went all the way up to Whole Foods to do some shopping. By the time we got home, I was very, very glad to be there.

So all in all, its been an enjoyable weekend. Good food, good beer, a bit of culture, and even ample amounts of football (as well as some awesome cold-brew coffee from our new French Press). I just wish I didn’t have to return to the Problem Solving Workshop tomorrow morning, but such is life! 🙂

I imagine that the next art museum I will be checking out is Harvard’s Fogg Museum, which just recently reopened after six years of major renovations and is closer to us, as well as being free (for us).

Until next time,
-Taco

Exams and X-Mas (The December Update)

December 17, 2014 by Taco

So last time I said I wasn’t’ going to write a post. I guess I lied, since I’m writing a post. However I’m 3/4 of the way through exams and I wanted a little break from studying contracts. The funny thing is, I’m having problems accessing my blog again. And when I say “problems” I mean that I can’t access it at all. Now here is the interesting thing, you can (I mean, obviously, you are reading this). So its some sort of backbone issue. Which means its not something easily fixed (or even fixable). In other words, its impossible for me to do anything at all with my blog when its “down” like this. Notice I said essentially. In order to get around a pathway problem, I just changed my path. Right now, dear friends, I am writing this post from Russia. Not literally, though the internet thinks I am. This has allowed me to bypass whatever the problem was in my normal route. The downside is that sending everything to Russia via some low-end proxy is not reliable and its slow. But, its what is allowing me to write this post at the moment so I won’t complain. However, I’m constantly losing my connection so if this post gets erased as I write it I will rage with the fury of 1000 dying stars.

Anyways, like I mentioned last time, posts really are not going to be written in advance from here on out, at least not regularly. So I’ll just share a few things that have been happening lately.

First, we’ve have no real big snow storm yet. We’ve had two big Nor’easters which are freaking horrible, then one lesser Nor’easter which wasn’t that bad. There have been a few times that the snow has been forecast as coming, but its never amounted to a whole awful lot. Valentino waits patiently for it.

Harvard has an interesting way of dealing with the ice when it comes to all their grand ole’ buildings with huge staircases. They just build a little platform of stairs, on the stairs, then rope off the rest of it.

To be fair, I’ve only really seen that on one building (Widener Library, seen above) but then again I’m not really much of a campus explorer these days, there just isn’t enough time. This is primarily (read: exclusively) because of exams. But I’m not going to talk about them now, I’ll save them for my law school post (assuming I can actually write it). However, the plus side is that since my term and exams are longer than SB’s (she is done, lucky devil) we’ve got to spend a bit more time together. Before she was finished we even did some studying together.

That is one room in Widener, I don’t think either of us had been in that part of that library before. Harvard has enough libraries to build a city and we normally go to the law school library (Langdell). However, once the exam period begins HLS locks out the non-law people from the library. Its a good move, I 100% support it, however it does keep SB out as well, even with her fancy Harvard affiliate (spouse) library card.

Second, we’ve continued our Friday night outs as usual, in spite of all the end of semester stress. This past Friday we headed back again to Grendel’s Den. Which is our third time now. We actually wanted to go try out the Queen’s Head Pub again, but when we got there it was closed for a private event – which they were kind enough to not post on their website or Facebook. So that place hasn’t had a super strong start for us, especially since we waited an hour for it to open, only to find it was closed to us, which made us later for everywhere else. Anyways, we went with Grendel and it was tasty as usual.

More interesting than the food, was what happened when we got outside. As soon as we opening the door I heard chanting, and once we got up top (Grendel’s Den is actually in a basement) I could hear they were shouting “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot” – so it was a Brown/Garner protest. (The first shot is hard to make out due to lighting, but you can’t blame me this time, these were SBs 😛 )

There had actually been several of these, both in Cambridge and Boston, but this was our first time running into one. There were also a few at the law school (including an ongoing one where they’ve covered portraits of professors with the alleged last words of people killed by police), but none this size.

They had actually started gathering on campus when we were on our way to Grendel’s Den, so we had seen the crowd during the portion of the evening when they were giving speeches, prior to the march. However, I wasn’t really sure where they were going to be, turns out it was right in front of us. They actually were walking against traffic and quite a few cars got stuck in the middle of the flow of 1000s of people.

We were right up at one of the intersection and they extended a good distance in both directions. There were cops on the sides and backs of the crowd and everything was pretty peaceful, aside from the people who were backed up in there cars so far they couldn’t see what was happening. The distant horns struck me as funny, talk about a fruitless waste of car battery.

We also took a brief video as they were passing by: [I’m not sure if the video is even working, I might deal with it when I can reliably access my blog, right now its just impossible]

After the protesters had moved down the street we started heading back home. Since we were in the area, we decided to try the newly opened location of Mike’s Pastry. Mike’s is apparently one of those “Boston Institutions” that every needs to try. So this means that some people absolutely hate it, as overpriced, over-hyped garbage that is vastly inferior to the “true” hole-in-the-wall bakeries (Which Mike’s once was, of course). On the flip side, you have those who love and say its the best and still is a hole-in-the-wall bakery. I don’t know enough about it to take sides, but I like pastries, way too much. However, up until very recently they only had one location which was down in Boston proper and thus too far for us to travel simply for a pastry. But, fate intervened and they opened a new location fairly close to us and it just so happened to be directly in our path home.

So:

We got some, of course. Now Mike’s is famous in and of itself, but they are particularly known for their cannolis which are are apparently a big Boston desert. In fact we thought that that was all they had. But nope, we were wrong. They have all sorts of goodies AND all sorts of cannolis and I do mean all sorts, I had never seen a collection of cannolis so large. The variety for the other baked goods was pretty good as well. Prices were not so good, but that is part of living in an East Coast city. However, the stuff you got was BIG, so you didn’t go sugar-tooth hungry after spending your cash.

On the left is the “Peanut Butter Cannoli” which was amazing but so insanely rich that SB and I combined didn’t finish it in one setting (and if you know me, that is saying something). On the right is a “Lobster Tail Creme Puff.” I have no idea where the name comes from, but it was good. It was also rich, but no where near as rich as the cannoli. Both of them lasted more than one sitting.

Of course its also getting close to the holidays. And while exams form a nearly impenetrable barrier that fogs my holiday spirit, we did go ahead and put up some decorations. Like usual, we stuck to my rigid “12 days of Christmas” decoration rule, in fact we put them up on day 11 due to my exam-schedule. Little Friend is stylin’ as usual.

As a remainder here is what he looked like five years ago, on his first Christmas

(Keep in mind he was heavily pruned before our move to Boston)

We also put up our tree that FIL and MIL got us many moons ago, as well as a few other decorations we’ve accumulated over the years.

From Left to Right: Christmas Tree, Tristen, Valentino, Thomas (Pumpkin), Bonsai Buddy Jr., Three Amigos (Nacho, Quixote, Pancho), Little Friend

SB even convinced me to put up our little strand of lights. I am not a lights person, but I’m a scrooge. They do look nice once they are up, but I don’t like putting forth a lot of effort for temporary decorations.

And that’s about all I have to share for now. I need to get back to studying and I’m sure Putin is watching me type this post.

Since I likely won’t mention anything about it in my next post, which I will hopefully be able to write:

Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Ramadan/Kwanzaa/Football Sunday/Decemberween/COLLEGE_NAME and a Happy New Year!

Until next time,
-Taco

P.S. – Due to my ultra slow Russian proxy everything took like 5 years to upload, so appreciate the media 😛

Law School Basketball

November 28, 2014 by Taco

Happy day after Thanksgiving! (Or Black Friday, for you shoppers)

So I’ve been having some technical issues with my blog. The biggest issue is that I haven’t been able to log in regularly. Also, and if you are subscribed this will not be news, I had a post that wasn’t supposed to get send out, get sent out. Have no fear, you’ll get notified of it, yet again, soon enough.

So, anyways, this will be the last “pre-recorded” post that I make, at least for the time being. I wanted to write it sooner, but technical problems prevented that.

Anyways, last Friday night SB and I saw some law school basketball.

Yeah, I know basketball is probably not the first thing you would think of when it comes to law school, but the world is a big place.

More specifically, last week was “Rivalry Weekend” here in Cambridge, as in, Yale was in town. Now, the focal point of the weekend is “The Game” but I’m not going to talk about that too much since I hope to go before I leave, but I will say that Harvard won, of course. Which means they were undefeated this season.

Anywho, “Rivalry Weekend” hosts various other Harvard-Yale match-ups, but there is also a lesser known game between HLS and YLS. A basketball game. No, technically neither of these schools have basketball teams, nor do they even have official intramural teams. Its a law school, after all. However, what they do have is a basketball club. To join you need to be A: A law student and B: Like basketball, that is about it. Now to actually play, you probably have to be decent, but the entry requirements are low. I have no idea who they play most of the year, my guess is other local clubs.

But if there is a Championship Game for law school basketball clubs, HLS vs YLS is it, and HLS was the reigning champion.

I found out about the game from a flier, which also said it was free. Also, it was at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, which is near where SB and I live. Since it was -100 degrees it was nice to have something close. So we decided to make a Friday night of it (I had a memo to work on for the rest of the weekend, but Friday night was going to be good). It was my turn to pick where to eat, so I went to our nearby standby of Darwin’s and then we headed over to the usual Broadway Market for treats and beer (nothing blurb worthy, at least not yet – I did get some Thanksgiving beer, but thats on lockdown). After that we headed back out to the school.

When we first got to the school we overheard some other people who were going to the game, they were trying unsuccessfully to get in the building. We ended up finding the right way in, well I found the right way in then SB led me away from the door to follow the other moo cows, then we went right back to the door I found and it was correct. The first thing we noticed was that the inside of this school was quite nice. No seriously.

Even the public schools are nice here.

We found our way inside the gym, which was also nice, and found our seats. It was interesting, we started on the Harvard side. However, the Yale players were practicing at the end of the court with all the Harvard player’s stuff. So when the game was about to start, suddenly all the Harvard players moved to the other side, which caused a flood of people to the other side as well. We decided to just sit on Yale’s side because Harvard’s was packed (hometown advantage). This was kind of fun, because we got to witness some Yale emo rage.

You’ll have to forgive my crappy shots. I think my phone has a “Sports” or “Active Shot” mode, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. And was more interested in the watching the game than playing on my phone. HLS got off to an early lead, and the game was still mostly fun and joyness at that point. Though the fouls started to build and by the end of the first half it was resembling street ball more than anything.

Speaking of half time, since this event was sponsored by law firms (with the proceeds going to public interest students at both schools, yay!) we got swag. And I don’t mean a crappy pen, we got these USB charger block things. I had never heard of them, though SB had. Its basically a battery pack that you charge via USB and then you can use it to charge your phone, or iPod or whatever, while on the go. Its pretty cool. Sure, its emblazoned with a law firm’s name on the side, but I checked on Amazon and these things run between 20-25$ a piece, and we got two. Can’t complain.

Soon enough the second half was underway and this was about the time that the friendly game started getting a bit angsty. Well, at least for the Yale players, maybe Harvard was chill because they were winning. To be fair, it was really only one girl on Yale’s team who looked like she was going to throw her Candyland pieces across the room and shut off the Super Nintendo. But the “hostility” was in the air for sure. Harvard got a big lead, then they proceeded to get fat and lazy and just try for three-pointers over and over, which quickly resulted in Yale narrowing the gap.

The good news was that the announcer was very funny and while he was obviously pro-Harvard, he took digs at HLS whenever they deserved it (which was often in the second half). Both sides were fouling like crazy and got double bonuses on each side, I don’t remember what that means, but SB told me about it. Despite their fatness (and some weird manipulation of the game clock that heavily favored Yale) HLS kept their lead and won the game, as we knew they would.

They even had a little trophy presentation ceremony at the end, where HLS received a team trophy and then one of the HLS players received the MVP trophy.

This was half victory speech, half smack-talk, which was made better by the ongoing QQs of that Yale girl I mentioned earlier.

All in all it was a fun game, made entirely even more fun because it was free and also because we sat among the enemy when we watched it. I imagine next year it will be held in New Haven (following “The Game”) but if possible I’m sure SB and I will try to catch this game again when it comes back around. I still just think its cool that the law school has a sports team, even if it is just a club.

Until next time,
-Taco

—–

P.S. People from Cambridge are called Cantabrigians. I like it, it sounds like something out of a fantasy world.

Week One, Blizzard, Letters, and a Beer Blurb.

B. Good to Yourself.

Art, Food, & Beer

Exams and X-Mas (The December Update)

Law School Basketball

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