Days 340-343: May 6-9, 2013

I finally found the secret room in the Union this week! I decided to take one more look to see if it was open, and when I walked by it was unlocked this time. As you can see it is a very nicely furnished room, and it also has some amazing views of campus from the windows, since it sits in the highest spot of the building. At least now I know the Room of Requirement exists!

On Tuesday I went to Which Wich for lunch, which I haven't been to in a while, even though I used to go all the time 1L year. Which Wich is cool because you get to draw on your sandwich bag to pick your sandwiches. It also happened to be the first place I ever saw any IU basketball players, after I saw Hulls and Elston there last year. I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning, and then went on one of my longest runs ever around campus.

On Wednesday after a haircut I enjoyed a nice walk around campus and passed by the River Jordan here near Dunn Meadow. They are doing a bunch of construction nearby, and I'm not really sure what for. But hopefully by the time we come back in the fall it will all be cleared up.

On Thursday I stopped by the Oliver Winery to pick up a few bottles before I leave Bloomington for the summer. It was nice weather in the afternoon before it started raining a bit in the evening. I begun packing to head back, and then went out for a long run in the evening, where I crushed all of my PRs for distance and time, finishing up at 9.12 miles in just over 1 hour and 16 minutes. It was an amazing run and I never planned to go that far but I just kept going, ran through one mini-rain storm, and continued to take longer and varied loops around campus until I finished up by running through the Sample Gates. But then I noticed I was at 8.9 miles, and I wasn't going to stop before hitting the 9 mile mark, so I continued around Dunn Meadow for one final turn before finally coming to a stop.

Days 337-339: May 3-5, 2013

Took a nice walk through Dunn Woods on Friday afternoon, which was as relaxing as having absolutely nothing to do following the end of 2L year. I settled down in the Union for a bit to work on dropping some footnotes, and then went over to Nick's for Hockey Night in Bloomington Part 1. Unfortunately, both the Penguins and the Wild lost, so David and I did not have a very good opening of the Hockey Night in Bloomington series.

Saturday was graduation day at Indiana University, for both the law school and the general University community. Best of luck to all the 3Ls graduating this year, and to all of the other students finishing up their undergraduate careers. You are now all Hoosiers and always will be—Indiana we're all for you!

Last week I got this cool new app on my phone, SleepCycle, and I have been using it for just about a full week now. You are supposed to leave it at the corner of your bed and it tracks your movements to tell when you are awake, in regular sleep, and in deep sleep. It not only monitors your sleep quality over the course of the night this way, but also has a special alarm function that is supposed to wake you up at the most optimal time in the morning. You tell it when you want to be up by, and it monitors your movements to attempt to wake you up within the 30-minute window prior to your alarm time at a time during which you are not in deep sleep, so that you will feel more awake and alert when you actually wake up. So far, I think it has been working pretty well, and is a pretty cool app!

Days 333-336: April 29-May 2, 2013

To begin the week I stopped by Soma for the first time to grab a smoothie. It was very good and I am surprised I have not stopped by Soma yet. My "Jungle Juice" smoothie was a great snack to get the day started, as this was the beginning of the long and challenging week that would culminate with two exams in 24 hours. It was time to sprint towards the finish line of 2L year as crunch time is upon us. The bad news is it was two of my non-multiple choice exams, but the good news was it was also my only two open-book exams. So the plan was to spend two days prepping for each, and then buckle up and get the job done.

First up was Administrative Law, and after a long day spent mostly studying for Secured Transactions (I had designated both Sunday and Monday as Admin days), I put together a couple hours worth of refreshing in Admin towards the end of the evening. It was challenging spending the whole week in the library as the weather was getting to be quite nice outside, but I was fortunately able to spare some time to go for a run on Monday before I really had to lock it down. I think I did a good job of organizing and prepping for round one, but we'll have to wait and see how everything comes back in the end.

Secured Transactions is.... well there is not much positive to say about Secured Transactions. Tropical Secured Transactions, however, is something else. Immediately after my Admin final, I got right into Secured, as it would take the entire rest of the day to actually figure out what was going on in that class. Towards the end of the night, it was down to the I-Jiggles office, where we found a random pineapple, paired it up with our globalization monkey, threw in some casebooks and statutory supplements, and created Tropical Secured Transactions!

On the final day of 2L year, it was the culmination of essentially the worst season of 24 ever: two exams wrapped up within 24 hours. But, like Jack Bauer, I put my game face on and finished strong (well, hopefully—we'll find out soon). It's a relief to finally be done and finish this long stretch and put an end to the challenging and strenuous 2L year. Oh, and it also happened to be another beautiful day in Bloomington.

Days 329-332: April 25-28, 2013

Thursday was a sprint day at the law school as I rushed to learn as much Corporate Finance as physically possible. I ended up spending most of the day in the journal office, as I-Jiggles has a surprising number of students in the class, so we were all learning together. Kunle taught me the most important thing about Finance: none of it actually works in the real world. I will plan on keeping that fact (which is entirely true) off of the exam though.

The Corporate Finance exam seemed to go fairly successful. Although it was challenging, I think I managed to learn quite a bit in the short period of time I had to race to learn it yesterday. Hopefully it was enough! Anyway, it was a decent day outside, so here is another nice Spring shot of campus and some flowering trees.

On Saturday it was time to turn my attention to Admin Law, as I am now entering the dreadful stretch where I have four days to prepare for two back-to-back exams: Admin and Secured. We also got these fun cool I-Jiggles tote bags as an end-of-the-year gift. I don't know what I will use it for yet, but it is always fantastic to rep I-Jiggles!

Sunday was a cloudy and occasionally rainy day, which matched the mood in the library as I continued to cram for Admin, and it seemed others were busy getting ready for their second week of exams as well. They did put up brand new flags though, and I took advantage of the windy afternoon to take a shot of them. Sunday finishes up my round of Admin studying, as Monday I will begin two days of Secured before we get ready to take on the third and fourth quarters of exam season within a span of 24 hours. It will be like an incredibly boring episode of 24—hopefully I can be as successful as Jack Bauer!

Days 325-328: April 21-24, 2013

We spent all of Little 5 (the largest college party in the country) in the law school library studying for exams. Of course, this meant that we got to spend the whole day watching all of the undergrads walk by the law library windows having fun. So to combat this problem, David constructed a nice sign to try to interact with, as they would refer to them on Lost, "the others."

On Monday I finally caved in to peer pressure and popular demand and ended my six-year run of Taco Bell sobriety to try the new Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos. And I must say, it was worth it because those things are fantastic. Maybe it's because they are so new that they cannot start giving out stale taco shells yet, but I will have a hard time staying away from Taco Bell in the coming weeks as I will surely want to go back for more. I have also missed Mountain Dew Baja Blast, which is one of my favorite drinks that I used to always have in high school, but due to my six-year Taco Bell sobriety stint, also made its first reappearance this week.

Tuesday night it was back to the Union, my typical pre-exam Battle Station spot to sum up all I've learned about Corporations before my first exam of the semester. The first exam is fortunately multiple choice, but this is going to be a rough home stretch with four exams in total. I am feeling good about Corporations, and I better get off to a fast start because I think each one I face is going to be progressively more challenging!

Wednesday I finished the first of my four exams, Corporations. It was then an immediate transition into preparing for Corporate Finance, which is coming up on Friday. It was a cold and rainy day in Bloomington, as the weather took another turn back down. Here is a lone blossomed flower by the Sample Gates that has closed up overnight in the chilly mid-week weather.

Days 323-324: April 19-20, 2013

I picked up this new Redd's Apple Ale this week. It is actually pretty fantastic. It tastes kind of cidery, but not really like a cider, much smoother, like an ale compared to other beer. It certainly makes for a good treat to finish off a long day studying!

Just a cool photo I took this week when I noticed that someone had left a flower in the Herman Wells statue's hand. Since most of the next two weeks will be spent studying up for finals, I imagine many of the next several photos of the day will just be simple things that I felt like taking a photo of.

Days 317-322: April 13-18, 2013

On Saturday we held our first ever class Bar Crawl, with these fantastic shirts designed to perfectly approximate the 2L year. Our Bar Crawl coincided with the 3L Bar Crawl, and we ended up meeting up at the final bar in the trip. It was a fun night to get out and see some people before we will all start to buckle down for Spring Semester finals!

Sunday it was back to the law school to start to get ready for our last week of classes. It was a beautiful day outside, but I had to lock myself inside the library to finish up all of my cite-checking and reading for the week so that as the week began I could get a head start on some of my exam studying. This semester is going to be a tough one, so time to get cracking!

Monday was a brief break to enjoy our long-awaited student-faculty basketball game at Assembly Hall. It was an amazing experience and exhilirating to walk down the stands and onto the court level to lace up the shoes and take the court. We were thoroughly dominated by the stacked faculty team, but it was a fun experience and a great game nonetheless. I managed to knock down a three from the corner, hit a Watshot in warm-ups, take one unbelievably long three-point attempt, deliver some good passes and a nice save out of bounds into an assist, and get to the foul line. I was mostly neutralized by the size of our opponent (it was like playing in a Big Ten game), which mitigated my ability to really play at the 3 where I'm best, but it was a fun time. One thing to note for the future: college courts are MUCH longer than gym ones....getting back on D and taking the ball up on offense gets tiring real quick!

On Tuesday we had a couple of storms come in the afternoon and again in the evening, so it was a rainy night. There were even more storms overnight, with plenty of thunder and lightning. I do enjoy some spring and summer thunderstorms, and since we had such a long drought last summer, it is nice to finally get some rain again.

This spot by the Courthouse stood out to me this week as I was thinking about what happened in Boston. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected, and I am thankful for the people of Boston who bravely stepped up to help those affected and helped ensure that the people behind this were doomed to fail in their attempt to make us lose faith in humanity. Evil can only prevail when good people do nothing, and the people of Boston showed us this week how we can heroically respond to tragedy, fighting out evil and ensuring that in spite of terror, we as humanity can continue to seek our own Freedom from Fear, through the bravery exemplified by the best of us.

There were storms brewing in Bloomington on Thursday evening, and while none of the strong storms came in during the day, the hard rain came earlier than expected. I ended up getting caught during my evening run in two strong downpours. It ended up being worth it though, as it made for quite an enjoyable run, and I really picked up my pace, which had been slacking lately. It was a good distraction from prepping for exams, which I returned to following my brief time outdoors.

Days 315-316: April 11-12, 2013

Thursday was a dreary and rainy day in Bloomington, as our wonderful weather finally came to a pause. We did have our end-of-the-year Journal Banquet at Upland on Thursday evening, but not in the actual restaurant, at a separate banquet room they have behind the building. It was a good evening, where we handed out Spring Semester awards and found out which authors were presumed for Volume 21.

On Friday, Bloomington's favorite guest of honor made a surprise weekend visit to town: Dan Cho! So, naturally, we made a return to Great Wall for some Cho Show karaoke. Cho came back just in time to help participate in our 2L Bar Crawl this weekend, which should be a fun opportunity to spend some time with our fellow classmates, as we are the only class that has not yet done a bar crawl. Sad, I know. But it should be a fun opportunity to mingle (or as lawyers call it, "network"), and tour some of Bloomington's finest establishments.

Days 310-314: April 6-10, 2013

It has been quite the busy week, so here is another large batch of uploads at once. Saturday was a day spent indoors cite-checking, and I even stayed in the library long enough to close it down. Of course, closing on a Saturday only means staying until 10:00 PM, but it still gets mostly empty by then. Even though I spotted up in my new corner hiding spot, most of the pit is empty by the time I am getting ready to leave.

Sunday was the first amazingly beautiful day of the year, with perfect weather in the 70s and plenty of sunshine. Although I was supposed to stay in and do work all day, I couldn't help going out for a run in the perfect weather. After finishing up my run, I was able to take this great shot of the Sample Gates. I then finally went back to the library to finish up my work for the day, enjoying my favorite spring-time library drink, a Starbucks iced green tea.

Monday was law school free stuff day, as I got some IJGLS "swag" and a Lexis Camelbak. The IJGLS stuff was for submitting the winning entry for Aman's end of the year gift, which was a photo of him superimposed on a famous person's body. My entry was him as Tom Crean at the introductory press conference, with the Crean and Crimson shirt saying Global and Legal instead. The Lexis bottle was from another training, doing some Lexis points hustling.

Tuesday was another beautiful day in Bloomington, so I took an afternoon break to take a few shots of some of the spring flowers and perfect weather. Here is a spot just inside the Sample Gates by the student building. I ended up going for another run after classes to enjoy the nice weather, and then moved back into the library to finish up my reading for the day and a bit more cite-checking.

I am not really sure what this "IU Strike" is, but I think it is something to protest tuition that the students are all going crazy about. Sounds like a dumb idea to me, especially when law school tuition is the one that is into the 30,000s. But you give undergrads a chance to act like there is an "important issue" and they will jump on it whether or not they even know what they are doing. Just ask UVA how their living wage campaign is still going. Anyway, Wednesday finished up classes for the week (only one more week left...), and I ended the evening by serving as a juror in a mock trial, which was pretty fun and exciting. We ended up as a hung jury, but the side I voted with carried the slight majority!

Days 308-309: April 4-5, 2013

On Thursday we held Bar Review at a new location, Macri's. It was kind of a quiet Bar Review, but actually a pretty nice place that I had never heard of before. More on the laid-back and chill side, which was a nice change of pace. On Friday, we finally had our first nice warm day of the season, just in time for our PILF Dodgeball tournament. It was a fun afternoon of throwing and dodging things, and we ended up finishing in third place. I also started on the citation quiz that we will be incorporating into the journal writing competition this summer, in order to help catch some of the errors that will be tested on. So far I have been catching more errors than were accounted for, and I also found an error in the Bluebook itself—Boom! Lawyered.

Days 305-307: April 1-3, 2013

The weather turned a bit colder in the beginning of the week, but the bulbs are planted outside the Sample Gates and ready to spring up as soon as the weather decides it is time to stay warm for good. This winter seems like it has been the longest winter in recent memory, as we have had maybe four slightly warm days since January. It is about time for the weather to turn over for good.

Tuesday saw what was hopefully the last cold day of the year, as the temperature is supposed to shoot up from the low-40s to 60 on Wednesday. Here we can see a couple springtime flowers creeping through amidst the cold dark winter to enter us into the spring season.

In continuing with this early-week winter into spring photo series, we have a shot of the spring flowers planted just inside the Sample Gates. The weather is unfortunately still not quite spring-like yet, but here is a bicyclist passing by the springtime flowers hoping that is will soon become Spring for real—maybe tomorrow? I am not much of a bicyclist, but I am ready to get out there and run in some warm weather again! We only have a few more weeks left before I'll be locked up for exams, so I need as much warm weather time to get runs in as possible. Spring exams are always the worst, because being trapped in the library during that perfect and rejuvenating weather is just torture.

Day 304: March 31, 2013

Easter Sunday this year brought a beautifully warm day in Bloomington. I do not really celebrate Easter, and I did not really even realize it was Easter until I saw the Happy Easter here chalked into the Sample Gates, but it made for a nice photo and a good afternoon run in the warm weather. Otherwise, it was a day spent mostly cite-checking in the cold, dark library.

Days 301-303: March 28-30, 2013

This is one of the reasons I love Bloomington. Even the local hardware stores do what they can to support IU's tournament run. Literally everything in Bloomington revolves around basketball, and during the tournament, that is all that matters. I am so proud to be part of such a loyal and stable fan base that is motivated by the desire to win every year, with the goal set at the highest prize. Unfortunately, this year's dream season ended short of its ultimate goal. But nothing comes easy, and Hoosier Nation will recover and keep going on that quest for banner number six.

It was Fingerprinting Friday for me, as I had to take my fingerprinting cards to the police station to get my prints done for my summer internship as there is no GSA office anywhere close to Bloomington that does not only do Treasury and IRS printing. Otherwise, it was a gloomy day as Bloomington depressingly trudged through its post-tournament hangover and even the sun refused to show through on this afternoon.

SQUARE IS FINALLY HERE! This is one of the most amazing inventions ever—I can now take credit card as payment via my iPhone and my new Square device. The Square itself is entirely free, and for only a 2.75% surcharge on every purchase, I can accept credit cards whenever anyone needs to pay me, in addition to being able to keep track of all my payments. While I will probably rarely use this, it is still amazing and I imagine it will be a super fun way to collect payments whenever I need to run point on a fundraising venture.

Days 298-299: March 25-26, 2013

Monday evening remained a cold and snowy "spring" night in Bloomington as IU's campus was coated with a few inches of snow. Even Mr. Herman B. Wells was slightly buried under the snow in the background here. I suppose I spoke too soon last time I said it would probably be the last snow we saw of the season. This time I think it is safe to say, however, that this should be the last time we see snow this year.... I think.

On Tuesday morning everything was still coated in a beautiful layer of white powder. The drive to school in the morning was quiet and serene and very picturesque. You can see the green leaves of spring fighting to jump through yet being held back by this late bite of winter. However, by noon the sun came out and the layers of snow began melting faster than I'd ever seen snow melt before. All of Bloomington was dripping as the snow slid off the rooftops and the ground became covered in running water. By evening, most of the snow was already gone! Now, the truly warm weather just needs to come back as quickly so we can finally get this spring show on the road.

Days 294-297: March 21-24, 2013

Thursday was the official beginning of March  Madness and a return to Bluebird for Bar Review. We actually did not spend much time at Bar Review because we spent so much time watching the games at Brothers, which has much better televisions for basketball watching. The first day of basketball was great, but not as great as when IU finally takes the court!

On Friday, not only did IU open their NCAA Tournament run with an easy win over James Madison, but kickball started up again at Bryan Park. The weather was fairly nice, and even though it was a little chilly it felt warm on the field with the sun out. It was a bit of a rusty day for our team, but was good to get back out there and freshen up. I will likely need to work on getting my kickball skills back in peak shape for this summer, since kickball is huge in D.C. After kickball, we also stopped by the law school musical, which was great again this year and had some good songs, great jokes, and prominently featured some traditional Indiana candystripe pants.

The weather on Saturday was so beautiful that I had to get outside, avoiding staying locked up in the library by taking a walk around to take some photos and then going out for a run in the nice warm air. One would think that spring was finally on its way, until you look at tomorrow's photo of the day below. After an amazingly beautiful day, we were pounded by a surprise snowstorm that coated the ground in no time at all. At this point in time, I am definitely ready for spring to just come around, but I do love snow so I was not that disappointed after all. And additionally, Indiana won its second round game on Sunday to move on to a return trip to the Sweet 16 in Washington, D.C. Now we are moving into the depths of the tournament where we will be battle tested on the quest for the sixth banner. I will be returning to D.C. this summer, and hopefully IU can enjoy it for me next weekend by coming back to Bloomington with a Final Four berth in hand!

Days 284-287: March 11-14, 2013

Monday started off a nice, cold, week of spring break. Definitely not getting off to a warm weather start like we did last year. Here it looks like all of the law school's trees are being torn out and replaced with new trees. It is a bit of a mess now, but I am hoping as spring continues the landscaping will begin to develop a bit and start to develop a nicer look.

Tuesday was 50-cent wing day, so I went to the best place in B-Town for wings, Buffa Louie's, to grab some lunch. My favorite order is five wings in medium and five in medium BBQ, which is the single best sauce I've ever had on wings. Buffa Louie's is also conveniently located by the most awkwardly placed sign in all of Bloomington (and maybe in any city), which is the Hoagy Carmichael sign located just behind the USA Today sign. This sign hangs out right into the middle of the walkway, and I know of at least one or two people that have walked right into it.

On Wednesday I put in some quality time at the library to take advantage of the extra time over break to finish up all of my associate work for journal, catch up on some early executive board work, and take care of a couple other random errands. Wednesday also brought the surprise of some additional snow, not much, but enough to coat the grass and at times look like a much heavier amount was coming. Even though I love the snow, it is getting to the point where it is time for some warmer weather to come around. After taking advantage of the quiet library to get some photos of our beautiful study area, I finished off the day with a nice relaxing trip to the gym to get in some running and lifting and to play a bit of basketball.

Thursday was still a bit chilly, but we took advantage of the afternoon to head up to Indy and stop by a few of the breweries to sample some different beers. We started at Fountain Square (the Indianapolis version and NOT the Bloomington one), moved on to Flat 12, where we got free samples and enjoyed the nice warm outdoor fire pit, and finished off at the aptly named BlackAcre, what should be a law school favorite and had some great brews, good food, and amazing sweet potato fries. Tomorrow it will be off to Chicago, following Indiana's second-round B1G Tournament game, where although it will be the warmest day in Bloomington of the week, the weather will be much colder up north.