Context: It kinda sucks to be a law student looking for a job right now. It used to be that law school was a one-way ticket to moneyville. Not any more. Too many law students, too few jobs. Just like the rest of the country, but with $150k in student loans.

Context: in my very first week of school, Sirrah (who is singing at the start of the video) was assigned to be my Stein program mentor. She took one look at me and asked “can you sing? Can you rap?” So… in this video, the deans of Columbia Law and Brooklyn Law have tried to infiltrate the Fordham 1L orientation by posing as Dean Treanor.

Last night’s party was fun. A big thank you to everyone who came out. And thanks for all the birthday wishes.

And for those who don’t follow me on twitter, here’s a 40-second tour of my new room.

For context: outlining is a process many law students use to consolidate an entire course into a short(ish) and personalized study guide. Some people spend a day or two updating old outlines created by students who took the class in a previous year. Some people spend months crafting color-coded, tabbed, immaculately designed, thorough and bound outlines. We call the latter type of student a “gunner.”

For context: I am currently participating in the Unified Writing Competition. Along with grades, this is how we get selected to participate on Law Review and the other legal journals produced at our school. We have four days to edit a document filled with errors according to citation rules in “The Bluebook” and write a ten page note about a legal problem that has resulted in different rules in different courts. To write the note, they hand us a very large packet of documents to read. The contest ends at 6:59:59 pm on Thursday. Everyone I’ve seen this week (myself included) is crazy.

p.s. watching these videos, I understand why I didn’t get any dance moves more complicated than “bop and sway.”

Since I didn’t get much sleep on the red eye home, I’ve tried my best to stay awake until late enough that I won’t be up again in the middle of the night, but I’m fading pretty fast. Friday night in New York and I’ll probably be asleep by 9pm at the latest.

I’m going to assume most of you raised your hands. (fuckers)

So, my roommates finished their finals yesterday and left for the holiday already. Since I now have the place all to myself, you know what that means… YouTube karaoke! From one of my favorite musicals ever…

I can’t resist occasionally mimicking the incomparable Ellen Greene at a few moments in this song. Particularly in her accent/pronunciation. Unfortunately, I’m also fast at times and had to randomly improvise add my own interpretive color to the song.

I used to have every single part of this song down pat. I’m clearly long out of practice (and not a big-voiced, belty black chick). This is not my best singing, but it was too much of a pain to re-shoot.

Anyway, for those who were asking… my Property exam yesterday was brutal. Without a doubt the toughest test I’ve ever taken (including the LSAT). I knew the material well enough, time management was a problem. My last exam of the semester is in Contracts and it’s on Monday afternoon. I have to admit, this was my least favorite subject this semester, and so I’ve got the most work to do in being prepared for Monday. Luckily, if past exams are any indication, the professor is more concerned with making logical arguments than mechanical memorization and application of a bunch of dusty rules (*cough*property*cough*), so there’s less drilling and memorization to do.

Anyway, reports of expected snow in Manhattan are getting more and more dramatic as the day wears on. I planned to go running in Central Park tomorrow, but I may have to settle for the treadmill if I do actually wake up to 85 feet of snow. Either way, I’m thinking a walk in the park with my camera will be required.

I wonder if my contracts professor will remember yelling at me for drunkenly singing and dancing to “Hollaback Girl” at the beer bust event held in the law school cafeteria on Thursday night. I told him he was stifling my self-expression and that shit it bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. I’m not entirely sure which of us had more to drink at that point, but I suspect that I’m in for some public shaming on Monday.

So yesterday I had my first opportunity to represent an actual client in a courtroom. Through the Domestic Violence Action Center, another law student and I got assigned to help a woman at the Bronx Family Court obtain an order of protection (aka restraining order) against her husband who has been threatening to kill her if she ever tried to leave him or take custody of their child. The judge temporarily granted all the protections we were asking for and in 6 weeks we will return to court in an effort to get the order of protection made permanent for 2 or 5 years.

It was a very satisfying result, although it took all day. We started our day at 9am, met our client around 11, and didn’t get out of there until almost 7pm.

After a long day at family court, I headed directly to the Stein Scholars Karaoke party where I drank too much and sang badly with several friends.

More photos/video

I sang “I Kissed a Girl” and a lot of group songs. And now I’m convinced that they need to work “Africa” by Toto into an episode of Glee.

In proud uncle news, yesterday ended with some surprises in my phone messages when I got new glimpses of the adorable Owen Ace.

Jessi also posted some super cute pictures of Craig and Callie this week. And I’m sure Alexia will win the next season of So You Think You Can Dance.

Anyway, this upcoming week is super-short, only 3 classes and a training session for a pro bono research project. On the other hand, it’s time to get serious about finals. I only have 12 classes left until the end of the semester and we break for final exams. Since I don’t think it’s possible for me to study effectively more than 8-10 hours a day, this actually means I’ll end up having a bit more free time next month.

Yup, bought cheap Halloween wig at CVS and spent the evening singing karaoke songs in my dorm room. I really need to make more friends.

And, yes, they did it better on Glee.

Self-deprecating humor aside, I’m staying in tonight because I have to get on a bus at 6am tomorrow to get down to Washington DC for the National Equality March and Rally. The last major queer rights rally in DC was in 1993 when I was in Nevada, in high school, and in the closet. I really debated whether or not I wanted to go to this one, but in the end I decided that I’d rather be able to tell people “I was there” even if I have concerns about the effectiveness, purpose, goals and value of the demonstration. I’ll be marching with some of the Fordham OUTLaws folks, but hopefully I’ll run into some of the other activists I know from across the country.

Since almost everyone who reads this is also my facebook friend, if you’re at the rally, text me at the number on my FB info page and I’ll try to find you.

Sorry for the delay in getting today’s results show posted.

Congrats to Elle is for Lizard. Gay Moose seems to be leading in the popularity category for the moment, we’ll see how things go with the next challenge this coming Friday.

We’re kicking things off with a bang. For our first challenge in the mascot contest, the contestants have been challenged to make music videos that reflect the spirit of the blog.

So, keep lobbying for your favorite, because your votes will be critical in the final “popularity” category. And you can try and convince me who I should crown as the winner of this first challenge.

Results of the first contest will be posted on Monday.