2L Summer in DC

I spent my 2L summer back in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.  I conveniently lived very close to the Capitol itself, which was a great spot to start and finish a run around the National Mall.  It was nice to be back in the city, and much more enjoyable to be living directly in the city, without having to worry about traffic or a long commute everyday, and having the ability to see great views of D.C.'s iconic buildings every day.

I stayed in a dorm/apartment at Georgetown Law, which was conveniently located just a few blocks from my work.  It was a nice, short five to ten minute walk in every morning, and I was able to enjoy the nice, although small, campus that Georgetown Law provides.  My building is the one on the right in this shot, and I also was able to use the fantastic sport and recreation facilities that Georgetown provides, in the large glass building behind the clock.

I was working at the SEC this summer, where I was back when I applied to law school and ended up at IU.  This time, I was making a return as a summer intern.  It was great being back and working with everyone again, and I learned a lot. It would definitely be a great place to end up after law school, but we will have to wait and see how the cards fall.

After a brief 4th of July celebration in the nation's capital, it was off to New York to see the Yankees play at Yankee Stadium.  It was a brutally hot day, falling during the only hot week of the summer, but the Yankees managed to defeat the Orioles, closed off by the number one closer in the game, Mariano Rivera.  Afterwards, we enjoyed some of the fun New York spots, including a bar on a boat.

Back to D.C. and a late-night stroll to some of the monuments.  I think late at night is the best time to experience D.C.'s monuments, because the tourists are sleeping, so everything is much quieter and more serene.  I have a newfound respect for the WWII Memorial after visiting at night, and my favorite, the Lincoln Memorial, is even more hallowed after the sun sets.

One of the secret spots in D.C., I would have to say, is the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden.  I always enjoy heading to the fountain to sit and read a new book.  This summer I read the Great Gatsby, after seeing the movie in the beginning of the summer.  The book was great, and the Sculpture Garden served as a relaxing spot to enjoy it, particularly sitting by the water on a warm sunny day.

Another added bonus of the Sculpture Garden is that you can occasionally find your own rainbows late in the evening when the sun is setting at the right angle.  On my final venture into the city this summer, I finished off my kickball season on the National Mall, a D.C. staple.  The game was fantastic and we ended with a resounding victory. I think it is a perfect way to close out my summer experience, and has me ready to get back to Bloomington for the fall kickball season.  Our last game ended in perfect time to catch the sun setting on the west side of the Mall.

Days 362-364: May 28-30, 2013

Tuesday was the first day of work for the summer, which consisted mostly of a day-long orientation, followed by meeting some of the interns and the staff. It was good to see some familiar faces, and I am sure this summer will be a great one. After work, I took advantage of my Northern Virginia location to have some Paisano's Pizza again, as it is one of my all-time favorite pizza places, and I rarely have the opportunity to enjoy it anymore. It was delicious, as always, and a great way to close off a good start to the new internship!

On Wednesday, the National Mall was filled with kickball and softball teams playing some evening league games. While I am not sure softball on the mall is the safest idea (but a tort lawyer's dream), especially if you have any hitters that can even remotely hit a ball in the air, seeing so much kickball was very exciting. I signed up for a free agent team that begins in July, so I am looking forward to freshening up my Maurer Kickball League skills, as well as preparing to defend our I-Jiggles Inter-Journal Kickball Tournament Championship next fall!

After another busy day in this first week of work, it was back to Union Station to take the short metro ride back to Pentagon City. At the end of work today we had an intern welcome event on the ninth floor patio, followed by a Happy Hour at The 201 Bar just down the road. It was a fun evening, and the view of Union Station on the walk back was fantastic!

Days 358-361: May 24-27, 2013

Took a drive around this afternoon to check out some old sights, and made a stop by Krispy Kreme to get some hot and fresh glazed donuts. You know they are going to taste amazing when you see that the Hot Sign is on. This is also the sight of the Krispy Kreme where I once ate one full dozen hot glazed donuts in forty-two minutes. The trick: drink water, not chocolate milk. I believe, however, that I am beyond the days of rising to such challenges. It is unfortunate.

Saturday afternoon I went for my longest run in Virginia ever, a full eight miles. I took the long route through Austin Ridge that I once tried but had to give up on and head back before reaching the end. It is a mentally tough route, because you have to commit to going at least six miles to make your way all the way to the end and back, since there is no "circle" or "loop" to keep you close to your starting point. It is much easier to run now that they put in more sidewalks, but it still has a treacherous hill right before the six mile mark. I managed to make it through and add another two miles to the end. Afterwards, I caught up with some old friends from high school, and took a walk through the old neighborhood basketball courts. Apparently our neighborhood has "roughened up" since the good old days, as they now tore the rims off so you are not allowed to play basketball anymore. These were the original courts where my first basketball nickname, "Apokalipse" (intentionally misspelled) was designed, due to the fact that whenever I happened to make a fantastic basketball play (usually a game winning three (I wasn't that good back then)), we encountered some strange weather event. Generally in the winter, it would either immediately start snowing, or we would have a snow storm in the next couple days. Once, when I earned a thirteen-stitch scar on my right elbow playing football in the field next to the courts, the entire state was hit by a hurricane two days later that cut out power for 1-2 weeks depending on where you lived. And this is a true story—it was Hurricane Isabel, the costliest and deadliest hurricane of the 2003 season, look it up. The scarier thing, is that although the occasions became much rarer when I got decent at basketball, this year when I had my best outing since 2010 at the HPER, I walked out to find a surprising 1-2 inches of snow on a day no one had predicted an actual snowstorm (merely a mix). Winter is coming...

North Stafford now has new painted rocks out in front of the school that a lot of the schools have. We never used to have these when I went to school, but some of the newer schools started to put them out (i.e., Colonial Forge). I am not sure how I feel about having the rocks there. When I was in school, certain groups of individuals whose names shall remain shrouded in mystery (i.e., it was different people each year) would splash Colonial Forge's rocks with bright colored paints annually (we and Colonial Forge were not the biggest fans of one another). While I will not publicly condone the vandalism, and it was much more fulfilling to simply eliminate the Eagles from playoff contention on their home field in the Class of 2006's last road game, it does seem a bit of a cop-out to just put up our own rocks. We never needed them before, why now? On the other hand though, they do look pretty cool. And they do show much better in the blue and orange than Colonial Forge's drab colors, or Mountain View's "we are trying our best to copy Virginia Tech" colors. While visiting the school, the back gates were open so I had a chance to walk around the practice fields and see old gravel paths I used to walk every day to start the long two-a-days and after-school practices. Those are the fields where I was run, hit, and hollered at, but, most importantly, where I learned the game of football. And though it has been eight years since I last stepped foot on that turf, those fields still smell like football.

On Monday I moved into my temporary residence for the week in Pentagon City just before my first day of work tomorrow. I will be staying at the Residence Inn until I can move into my permanent summer residence at Georgetown University Law Center. The rooms at this place are amazing, it is basically a full studio apartment with kitchen, couch, desk area, and king bed. And it is a much closer location to the SEC than good old Staff-Town. Hopefully it will be a good first week of work, and I should be much more well rested without the multiple hours of commuting to do each week! It will be great practice for the rest of the summer, when all I have to do is walk across the street from GULC to Union Station.

Days 350-353: May 16-19, 2013

I have not had a Slurpee in forever, but I went out to finally get another one. Slurpees used to be commonplace in my high school days—I even wrote my persuasive essay for English class arguing that Slurpee machines should be in public schools, and our amazing Scavenger Hunt team was known as "Team Slurpee." We also had a secret super Team Slurpee formed, "The Black Slurpees," which was to be announced at a secret event for an upcoming scavenger hunt. Unfortunately, when I broke my leg playing football, our scavenger hunt had to be delayed, and this delay led to our plans falling through once the spring season arrived. Anyway, back to the present, this 7-11 pictured had a fantastic selection, but I actually moved on to another, which had the perfect draw: Banana, Pina Colada, Blue Raspberry, and Wild Cherry. Wild Cherry really ends up being irrelevant, because although it is the fourth best flavor of Slurpee, there is no point ever touching it when you have the trifecta of perfection available. I ended up creating one of my favorite blends, the Blue Banana Colada mix. (No relation to Bloomington's BBC.) The one important Slurpee rule to remember is to always select a straw color that matches your shirt color: a traditional Team Slurpee staple.

It was a nice Friday evening in Stafford, and here is a shot of a traditional Virginia country road. (The fact that I can even say "country" and not get odd looks is further evidence that regardless of what you are told, Stafford County is not Northern Virginia.) It was a nice day to go for a drive around some of the old roads of Stafford, and to follow up that drive with a good evening run.

Saturday was my first time going to Bonefish, and I definitely enjoyed my grilled Atlantic Salmon with a side of quinoa, edamame, and zucchini. Afterwards, we saw Great Gatsby, which was a great movie with some awesome cinematography. We made the rest of the evening a continuing cinematic event as we viewed Zero Dark Thirty at home. Also a solid movie, but a little bit long-running. The end was great, although somewhat predictable. For obvious reasons.

After the rain and clouds receded, I found some time to go for another run on Sunday. Here is a shot from part of my new Virginia route. As you can see, the terrain is a bit more long, hilly, curved, and varied than my traditional running environment in Bloomington. It is a bit more challenging on my legs that have not been trained for hilly running in a little more than two years. The good news about moving up to D.C. soon is I believe the terrain there is a slight bit flatter than here in Virginia. Unfortunately, however, I believe the basic routes I have preconceived may be a bit too flat, even more so than Bloomington. Hopefully I don't get too bored out there on the path.

Day 344: May 10, 2013

I was planning on making the last photo of the 365 Project a repeat of the same shot as the first shot, exactly one year later. Unfortunately for that plan, however, I failed to consider that I would be leaving Bloomington for the summer before June 1st. So, on my last day in Bloomington before heading home for the summer, I bring the 365 Project back to Day 1, the flower next to the rock by the Herman Wells statue, almost one full year later. As you can see, the flowers this year are quite larger and in a greater quantity than those last year. Still crimson of course. Goodbye Bloomington, and I will see you again in August!

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 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 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!