Fact of the Day: There are no breaks for 1L.

If you are thinking that seems like an odd statement when the title of this post contains the words “Spring Break,” then I wouldn’t blame you. The truth is, we do technically have breaks as 1Ls. The reality is that the law school goes out of its way to ensure that you can’t you know, actually take a break, during your break. Case in point.. you guessed it, LRW. So by now I hope you realize how much I f*cking hate that class. In fact, it probably holds the title of my most hated class of all time. As I’ve mentioned before, this semester (because everyone loves a year long class) your entire grade is a brief, with a partner. I ended up with someone who cares, a lot, lot, lot more than me. Like, if my cares equate to the size of a pea, my partner’s cares are about the size of the Pacific Ocean. No really, there is that much of a difference between us. Their minimum grade, is a grade that is so far up there that it doesn’t really exist to me. This makes for a bit of a clash of personalities. Namely, they’ve become the “Authoritarian” with lots of passive-aggressive demands, while I’ve become the person who has nothing to lose because I simple “Pass” is all I care about. It makes for some really interesting situations, wherein my Partner wants to run the show with an iron fist, but they ultimately realize at the end of the day that if I don’t care, there really isn’t much that can be done.

But the truth is, I do care enough to get the “Pass,” which might not sound like a challenge. But, let me assure you. A “Pass” here is like a 4.0 anywhere else I’ve been. No, I am not exaggerating. So to “settle” for a “Pass” still involves an insane amount of work for an LRW brief. Then, to top it off there is an oral argument after the writing portion is done (which I ironically just got my schedule for as I type this post). My point being, even just a “Pass” takes a lot. Next week is Spring Break, then my brief is due the week after that. See how that works? Its just like Fall semester, where they made an LRW memo due right after Fall Break. LRW exists to destroy breaks. And remember, LRW is just one out of five classes and I have a big project for my SPO coming up that will eat into Spring Break as well.

I also need to follow up with a few people (or rather, continue following up with) I met at networking receptions these past two weeks. I had one reception for Public Interest and one for Big Law. Both went well, the Big Law had much, much better food and they even put your beer into a fancy class instead of leaving it in the bottle. But there is no surprise there, Public Interest people have no money to buy sushi and fancy glasses. I don’t think I made any super amazing connections, but the networking practice is good. That crap is draining, especially when speaking to hyper assertive Big Law Partners, and when I had 3 hours of client interviews for my SPO right beforehand.

So Spring Break is kind of a joke, I’m going to have to lose at least one day to LRW (which requires actually going to campus – since my partner is working on classes all through Spring Break – yes they are one of those people), one day to my SPO, one day to writing an essay, and one day to catch up reading (because Professors are kind enough to TRIPLE your reading load over a “break”). Oh, and I also need to try to figure out a place to live this summer and if I am going to run for a club’s board (which I have been asked to do).

However, busy as it is, I still don’t have to go to class, so that is a plus. As far as doing fun stuff, SB and I’s breaks did not line up, and the one day she thought she had off, she didn’t. So that means we won’t really get to do anything. We are going to try to have lunch one day, but that is about it. All in all, not the most exciting Spring Break plans I’ve ever had, to be sure. And that is about all I can say for Spring Break at the moment, while my rich classmates are gallivanting around the world (literally) I will be in my apartment working or playing video games. Though I am more ok with that than it might seem. I entitled this post as my “Preemptive” Spring Break because its technically next week, I might try to write up an after Spring Break post, we’ll see. I still don’t think my sleep as fully recovered from our lovely “Spring Forward” last weekend, I always really struggle with that.

But that isn’t all for this post. I have some catching up to do since I haven’t been on my blog much lately.

Let’s start with some BEER! Its always beer with me, deal with it.

So if you recall, I LOVED the Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA and swore I would get my hands on the 120 Minute IPA. Well, I tried, and failed. The place I normally go to didn’t have the 120 Minute IPA. However, they did have the 60 Minute IPA. I figured I might as well try the entire quartet so I went with that. As mentioned before the 60 Minute is 6% ABV, the 75 Minute is 7.5%, the 90 Minute is 9%, and the 120 Minute is 15-20%.

1. 60 Minute IPA – Dogfish Head Brewery

This is the “Little Brother” of the almighty Dogfish Head Quartet. That said, don’t underestimate this beer. You’ll notice on Beer Advocate that its only marginally less lauded than its 90 and 120 Minute counterparts (and actually slightly outranks its 75 Minute brother). While I have to say, I liked the 90 Minute better, this is a far more drinkable beer if you are looking for more than 1-2 beers. I would be horrified to drink more than 2 90 Minute IPAs lest I become full-bore drunk. The 60 Minute is more of a 3-4 kind of beer. You’d still be quite happy, but not puking drunk. The flavors were largely similar to the 90 Minute, just a bit more mild and tangy. I standby my earlier statement, these are the best IPAs I’ve ever had. Having had 1 bottle of the 90 and 1 bottle of the 60, I very much look forward to trying out the 75 and 120 minute versions. I just need to 1 – Find them, and 2 – Be able to afford them. So far I’ve been limited to a single bottle of each, and I’d really like to sit down with 2 bottles, since I find that it generally takes be 2 beers to fully appreciate all the flavors.

Speaking of beer I also met Jim Koch.

That might not mean much to you, but to a beer person, Jim Koch is famous (or infamous, depending on who you speak to). He is the founder of the Boston Beer Company, or, as people more commonly know it, Samuel Adams Brewery. Sorry to say, the modern Samuel Adams Brewery is not the long-descendant of Samuel Adams himself, though he did have a brewery and this modern version is named in his honor (You now know something a lot of people don’t!). I’ve been to the original Samuel Adams brewery in Boston and drank more Samuel Adams beer than I care to link to (just search the blog – which is really only a fraction of what I’ve had).

Anyways, Koch is credited with spurring the American craft brew industry into action, in a way that it had not been since before the prohibition. In fact, since Samuel Adams started, the market control of major brewers (Miller-Coors, Anheuser-Busch, etc.) has shrank from nearly 98% to about 88%. Sure, the big corporations still control the vast majority of the market and most likely always will, but its allowed for a growth of micro and home brewing that wouldn’t have otherwise have been possible since such activities got set back a LONG time by our lovely prohibition. Now, how much Koch (A 5th generation brewer from Ohio) actually contributed to this resurgence is hotly contested by beer people, but I tend to think he didn’t hurt the process, at the very least. Regardless of all that, I jumped at the chance to meet him when I found out he was going to be coming to the law school to speak (Fun Fact: He is also an HLS grad, as are all cool people). In fact I skipped about 20 minutes of class to get to the talk in time. It was definitely worth it, the whole time he and the Dean were talking he was drinking a beer (Sam Adams, of course). Afterwards he took questions and this one guy who I already dislike essentially stole the microphone from me, thus putting him in the category of people who “Taco would not save from falling over the edge of a cliff even if he could” (Yes I have such a list). But good things come to those who wait and afterwards I got some 1 one 1 time with Koch while he and the Dean walked down to the law school pub (If you have forgotten, HLS has a bar inside the school, no seriously). There is a good picture of us out there somewhere, but Harvard owns it, and I’ll probably never see it. While there were many funny and good things to take from his talk, I liked how he pointed out that the first brewery in American opened in 1635, followed by the first university in 1636 (Harvard) – proof that beer is required to learn anything. (Also worth noting, Koch is good friends with the founder of Dogfish Head!)

Another nice thing about going to those kinds of talks is that they normally feed us. At the Koch talk for instance we had a nice boxed lunch.

I ended up taking two more boxes home for SB and I, in addition to 11 cans of Diet Coke. Don’t ask how I do such things, just be amazed. A lot of the lunches bring in all sorts of food, such as Indian.

That was actually SB’s lunch when she was on campus for a mental health symposium, but I’ve had the same thing. Of course, there are also plenty of times that they serve some good ole’ American viddles.

Honestly, I don’t care what it is its all free, and when you tend to be on campus for up to 10 hours (or more) the less food I have to try to mash into a lunch box, the better. Koch wasn’t the only one I met since my last post, I met Ingrid Newkirk (Founder of PETA) but she no longer likes me because I am not a PETA fan and I exposed a logical fallacy she used in her presentation (and am now probably on someone’s death list).  I also met Frances Beinecke, former president of the NRDC, who I do like. And speaking of Presidents, the Vice-President (as in the Vice-President, Joe Biden) was on campus earlier this week. I didn’t meet him though. In fact I didn’t even know he was here until I happened to look out the window and see a bunch of cops.

I still didn’t know what was going on until I asked someone. I’m glad I asked, after class I saw a bomb squad in the fireside lounge, which might have been a bit more concerning if I didn’t know the VP was in the building. Of course I shouldn’t be too concerned, I’m in the middle of my big DoJ background check, so I’m sure they know everything there is to know about me. This week I went and got my fingerprints taken at the Harvard Police Department, which cost me 20$. The HUPD headquarters is actually pretty nice, with good views of Cambridge. Then they take you down into the booking dungeon (literally) to take your fingerprints. It was kind of creepy.

As you can see from  photo above, our snow has greatly receded. A few unseasonably warm days really did some damage to the snowbanks. I’m not complaining, I’ve walked through plenty of snow for one year. We’ve had 105.7″ of snow for the season, just 1.9″ away from the all time record. The weather people seem to think we won’t make it, but the locals seem fairly confident that a few small March snows (and possibly April ones too) will make up that last 1.9″ of difference. I’ll be sure to update if we do actually break the record. I would find that so terribly ironic.

But not all the snow is gone, in fact just this week I found a giant snow squirrel!

I really wish I had found him before the temperature went up, but at this stage you can still easily tell its a squirrel. This isn’t related, but its a pretty picture SB took a bit ago.

I can’t remember how long ago, but its been since the Charles River unfroze, if nothing else. For a good while the entire river was one big sheet of ice, and many of the side channels still are.

I can’t say I miss the ice, I am very glad my sidewalks are slowly transforming back into sidewalks. Since the Harvard Shuttles and Buses don’t have convenient routes for me based on where I live, I walk pretty much everywhere (the non-Harvard [MBTA] public transit doesn’t do me much good getting to school either). Of course I can’t hold anything against the shuttles, the other day I saw a happy one, which made me happy too.

Speaking off happy things, conducted 3 client interviews this week for my SPO and all of them went really well! Made me feel like I have big britches to run the interviews myself for the first time.

Another happy thing is that when we were at Whole Foods last time they had free samples of Parmesan-Crusted Scallops. Yes, FREE SAMPLES of the ENTIRE SCALLOP. It was awesome, I ate 2. Valentino ate at least 20.

A even more happy thing was that my Aunt came to visit again! This time it was less about seeing us and more about find a place to live. She is moving up to this area for work. So we got spoiled again! She took us out for a nice dinner at place called Benevento’s, which was right in Little Italy and therefore had awesome Italian food (kudos to SB’s boss for recommending it). Afterwards we walked over to the original Mike’s Pastry for some cannolis!

It was crazily packed, considering that it was like 9:30pm on a Sunday. But I guess when you have good noms, the people will come. I liked my Limoncello cannoli a lot, probably more so than the Peanut Butter one I had last time at the Harvard Square location, namely since this one was more manageable and less rich. SB and my Aunt enjoyed theirs as a well, and the coffee was (as always) a nice pairing. All in all a good night. The only downside is that once we got back to the train station and my Aunt sent on her way, it was decently late by the time we got home. But it was all well worth it! The quickest way to get SB and I to spend time with you is to take us out to dinner we normally can’t afford. 😛

I’m kidding (sort of). 🙂

So that pretty much catches up the blog. My plans for tonight (Friday) are to go out with SB for our weekly date, get some noms, some sweet noms, and (obviously) some beer! As I complained about above, I am going to have a busy Spring Break and not in the fun way, but overall I will take having to go to campus 1ish time(s), as opposed to 5-6 times, any day of the week.

Until next time,
-Taco