FishWatch

If Only We Were Still in College, We Could Use This New Skill To Pick Up Girls...And Then Ask Them To Harmonize With Us.

2011-06-22T16:00:00.007-04:00

When we were in about 10^th grade, we loved to gather around with all our (girl) friends and sing songs around the guitar with our (one) guy friend who would humor us by playing all of Rites of Passage and Swamp Ophelia and the one song we knew that was not by the Indigo Girls (What a Good Boy, Barenaked Ladies). We started to fall in love with the experience of just sitting around and informally singing and harmonizing and pretending to be really deep and emotive, and we thought we are going to do this OUR WHOLE LIFE LONG.

We arrived at college and mostly we did a lot of singing without any musical accompaniment, but once in a while we’d find a pianist or skilled guitarist to play along while we tried to navigate the key change in Whitney’s I Have Nothing or sing some sad depressing Jeff Buckley number.

And then for the last 8 years, we’ve felt a great void in our lives. Yes, we’ve found some opportunities to sing (small shows, voice lessons, filling in for our Choir friends), but it’s hard to find accompaniment for when you finally convince yourself that some boy doesn’t like you back or that your stewing lamb didn’t come out quite right and you just want to sing it out. Also, there are those times when mom or some friends want you to sing for them and you just feel silly singing without musical accompaniment or without 13 of your friends standing behind you in a horseshoe shape while snapping and ooo-ing.

That changes RIGHT NOW. Yesterday, we called the Old Town School of Folk Music, signed up for a class THAT NIGHT, rented a guitar, and voila, within 5 hours, we were sitting in class learning our D, A7, G, Em, and C chords. Remarkably, you can play any number of songs with those basic chords, including, our favorite from last night:

JL pointed out that this was his audition song for our college a cappella group, so it’s really fitting because it symbolizes a return to our musical selves.

Already, we have amassed painful finger tips and a list of songs we want to learn ASAP. They include guitar covers of the entire Adele 21 album and Joni’s saddest songs (Case of You, River, Blue). We swear one day, we will learn an upbeat happy song that does not involve a 1970s television show.

We Love These Posts Where We Can Recap Months at a Time Because They Make Our Life Seem Actually Interesting and Full of Stuff

2011-06-06T19:53:00.004-04:00

Well well well. Sorry we disappeared amidst our travels, but not having a job for 3 months got EXHAUSTING. Seriously. And then having a job became EXHAUSTING too. We have decided that we need block scheduling in life like those schools that make you do stuff for three months and then you get a month off. Or we need to move to Europe where you get a month off even if you don’t do stuff.

Anyway, after our last post, we were dunzo with Peru, went back to Bogotá for a week, where our friend JJ joined us, and then headed to Chicago for more apt hunting and lease signing. After finding our now current home, we jetted off to London for a (cold, but) SUPER fun week with cousins, friends, actual sidewalks, and cabs in which we did not have to fear kidnapping. We made it out of LHR just in time to miss the (ONE INCH OF) snow that shut the entire city down, and then headed to Mumbai for more cousins, uncles, grandma and friend time, but this time with fewer sidewalks and far less snow (ALTHOUGH HOW CAN YOU GET ANY LESS THAN ONE INCH).

It was then back in Chicago for New Years, New Apartment, and New Job, and New Life.

Now it’s five months or so later, and we have a few thoughts on life in Chicago v. life in NYC. Queue the bullet points!

COLD! HOT! There are 2 seasons. Like, last week, it was still winter. Today it is 92 degrees. According to the New York Times, Chicago will be Baton Rouge by the end of this century. We have never been to Baton Rouge, but it appears to be hot. That said, we would not mind Baton Rouge-like conditions in April and May, when it sometimes STILL SNOWS HERE. Also, there was that time in February where there was thundersnow that made our building shake and us fear getting caught on Lake Shore Drive for 8 hours.

FOOD! It is really good here. And somewhat manageable. We have a list (google doc, natch) of places to go and places we’ve been. And we talk about it. A LOT. Like it’s a common date talking-point. Sometimes we give people reading rights to the doc, but never editing rights, as we don’t really know if we can trust people quite yet with something so sacred.

SPACE! Not the kind where there is no oxygen or where NASA no longer plans to go. Like apartment closet space, space on the sidewalks, space in the Whole Foods line, space at the Trader Joe’s wine shop. We are tempted to gain some lbs just to take advantage of it all.

BEAUTY! Our view from our Apt is kind of sick. We are way up high and way up north, so we see the Lake, downtown, Wrigley Field, and can see all the way to the birthplace of the great MJ himself, Gary, IN. The urban landscape is nice, the city is clean, there is green space and public art, and very few full trash bags on the street. You know when your friends come to visit NYC and then say, OMG, there are so many garbage bags out for collection here, and you are like, “what do you mean, how else does it work?” There is another way, people!

CHEAPNESS! It’s nice to go out to eat and not spend a fortune. Although one can still find a way to go out to eat and still spend a fortune. It’s also nice to have cheaper ZipCars, cheaper groceries, and cheaper prosties. JUST KIDDING, we don’t know the answer to that last one, but we can take a guess.

TIME! OK, this last one is a lie. We initially thought that we would have more time to like, pick up a trade, such as the guitar, or TV/VCR repair. Or at least keep up with the old Español. But no. We are working a bit more than we thought, which is totes fine b/c we like our job and our co-workers, but our trade skills will have to wait a bit.

Obviously we have left out the BOYS! bullet point, but we do have observations on that front already which we will communicate shortly.

That shall be all for now.

Peru, Chapter II

2010-12-20T01:07:00.006-05:00

So, the secret thing about Colombia is that the food is not as tasty as other regions of the world. There, we said it. No one in our house used any spice other than salt, and when we made a pasta dish and put a bit of hot sauce in it, the household basically revolted. And despite our wonderful (non-racist) mother thinking it, we were not eating Mexican food for 2 months, because, well, we weren't in or even that close to Mexico...

Which is why our trip to Peru came just in time. Our friend FM sent us a lovely email about the food in Lima, and we had done a bit of research about the food in Cusco, so we went in armed with information, and hopeful that Peru would offer some OK vegetarian options for our mom and sister.

After scarfing down chutney sandwiches and teplas (see previous post), our fam dined at MAP Cafe in Cusco, which was a lovely glass room in the middle of the Pre Columbian Art Museum. Earlier that day we saw some cute Guinea Pigs running around the Piscac market, so we declined to order the Cuy, but our fish and lamb were quite good, and there were some good Veggie options for Mom and Sis.

OK, fine, MAP Cafe can plate food better than we can...

In Lima, we really liked Pescados Capitales, where we ordered one of 98102938 ceviches while our sister looked on eating a risotto. Luckily we had learned some of the deadly sins vocab (Pecados Capitales, GET IT? GET IT??), so we understood some of the wordplay on the menu.

YAY!!! PUNS!!!!!

Lima, with its history of Chinese immigration, also offered "Chifa," which Sis and we went to sample in el Barrio Chino. Because Chifa incorporates Peruvian ingredients and styles, there were fewer veggie options than found in other Chinese inspired cuisines, but the food was pretty good.

And as for Thanksgiving dinner, well, when we called Astrid y Gaston from Bogota and asked if they had veggie options for Mom and Sis, they not only said they did, but said that the chef would be able to offer more options than on the menu. This was false. After getting all dolled up, we arrived at the restaurant, sat down, ordered some wine, and then asked what said "more options" might be. At which point the waiter said that all they had was either grilled or steamed vegetables. We used about 4 different verb tenses in Spanish, including the imperfect subjunctive, to try and convince them otherwise, but...Mom and Sis had grilled vegetables for Thanksgiving dinner, which was a bit of a bummer for them. We again did the ceviche thing, which, as expected, was delicious...

These meat and seafood infused items were better than grilled vegetables...

And as for drink, one can never have too many Pisco Sours, which we learned has egg whites in it, so it's not only great for nights out, but it's healthy as well. We liked some of the bars in Barranco in Lima, the "bohemian" and "gallery" neighborhood, and we even met up with a new friend JQ, who took us to a gay bar in Miraflores, where we had some monster sized Pisco Sours.

Camera tricks in Lima's Center...

So after conquering Peru, we parted ways with the fam and headed back to Bogota for a final week there. Overall, a great country with amazing landscapes in the mountains, nice peeps, and great raw fish soaked in citric acid.

Next stop, LONDON.

Peru, Chapter I

2010-12-05T16:40:00.009-05:00

On Saturday, November 20^th, we boarded a plane to Lima, Peru, dreaming of ceviche, alpacas, and inca ruins. As you will soon see, dreams really do come true.

We arrived late Saturday night and met our parents and sister at the baggage claim, and then checked into our hotel, which was across the street from said baggage claim. The Lima airport hotel is not joking around when they say that they are located at the airport. Because the online reservation system would not let us do 4 to a room, we lied and said there were only 2 of us, and tried to keep up this lie upon entering by having our mom and sister wait at the entrance. The only problem with this was when our mom and sister tried to enter the hotel, the hotel thought they were prostitutes. To avoid having our mother and sister labeled as such, we shelled out the extra persons fee, a small price to pay to preserve our family's honor.

Very early in the am, we walked back across the street to catch our flight to Cusco, and after only a slight delay - we made it to the historical capital of the Inca empire. We love how the Incas were so gay friendly and adopted the rainbow flag as their own in a showing of solidarity.

But our journey was not yet complete. After adjusting to the 11,200 feet by drinking Cocoa tea (which tasted like cardboard), and eating about 17 chutney sandwiches made with real life Indian chutney smuggled into Peru by our mother, we hopped in a car to Ollantaytambo, the train station in the Sacred Valley, from where we would catch a train to Aguas Calientes. The train ride involved more chutney sandwiches and some Teplas, another delicious Indian snack smuggled across international borders.

We checked into the Hostel el Santuario (which we more than once called the Hotel Sanitorium), a lovely spot along the river, and prepared for our pre-dawn wake up time which would allow us to see the sun rise over Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas. The only problem was at 5:45am, the clouds let loose and it started pouring. Undeterred, our guide led us to the bus and we took the treacherous drive up the mountain to MP.

The rain continued during our two hour tour of the site, (and it's not like we were able to stay dry at all, since our sister insisted that the umbrella remain over her fancy SLR camera the entire time), but the fog and clouds added a level of mystery to the place, and for the whole two hours we had no sense of the scale of it all or of the natural surroundings.

However, what immediately struck us was the obvious anti-Yale sentiment that pervaded the tour. Our sister outed us as a graduate of said institution, and so immediately we felt like we were being attacked. So a Yalie took ALL of the artifacts from MP to New Haven and never gave them back? Don’t take it out on us! Our guide was really smug when he said Yale agreed that very weekend to send everything back, and we swear at some point he tried to push us off an Inca terrace.

We hiked around the site for a bit, and eventually the sun came out and we could finally see Machu Picchu in all its glory, which was pretty incredible. Of course, we forced our sister to take 129038120398 pictures of us from the Guard House for various social networking websites, and we are pretty sure that we at least got one or two good ones out of the session. So we can't be too mad about the umbrella thing.

This is actually us.

After taking it all in, we headed back down to Aguas Calientes for some lunch and relaxing, and then hopped on a train back to Cusco. Upon reaching Cusco, we met up with MA and his brother and sister-in-law for some cervezas, and planned our conquest of the Sacred Valley the following morning.

We met the A family after breakfast, and then Wilbur, the local tour operator, told us we would actually be on separate tours of the Sacred Valley, and that “Oh yeah, you can meet up later,” in a completely random place over 2 hours away. When this was followed by his saying that our non-Spanish speaking parents would be on the Spanish speaking tour, we knew something was wrong. MA and we were as adamant as we could be in our intermediate Spanish, arguing as our first point of contention that Victor back in New York had assured us that both families would have one private tour. While Wilbur tried and tried, he was unable to refute the intricate arguments made by two non-practicing attorneys, even if we did not know how to directly translate “this is a travesty of the Peruvian justice system.” We managed to get a tour guide and car to take us around for the day.

The tour involved an animal rescue shelter (where there were pumas rescued from a Lima nightclub!), the ruins at Pisac, the pisac market (where we miraculously saw the same "handmade" stuff every sixth stall), and the ruins at Ollantaytambo (where we swear we saw a gay tour group who were not nearly as excited to see MA and us).

The sacred valley tour was great, but our dad apparently did not agree, as you can see in the video below.

Coming soon - our thoughts on Peruvian food and drink...

Who Knew Leaving Leaving Bogotá Would Be More Dangerous...

2010-11-19T18:29:00.007-05:00

Last weekend was both rainy (not surprising) and a holiday weekend (somehow, also not surprising since there are like 2 a month), and everyone cool was going out of town. So we were very excited when our school organized a little day trip to a pueblita outside of Bogotá for some sun, pool time, white water rafting, and the ability to say that "oh, yeah, we left the City too." (Even if it was not for the whole 3 day weekend). Some of the longer term students had done the trip in the past and told us that the rafting was relatively tame, so our "expectativas" were pretty low, but at the very least, the trip would not involve a rainy and cold day.

We left Bogotá early Saturday morning and drove up and down picturesque mountains, through fog, and along dirt roads, passing the biggest (live) spider I have ever seen, a dead snake, and other unidentifiable fauna, and soon entered the tropical climate zone that surrounds this mountainous city.

Once in our bathing suits and Marc Jacobs flip flops, (this has significance later), we donned our life jacket and helmet, got in the van with the group and headed to the the Rio Negro, called such because of all the minerals in it that make it appear black (see photos). Once we arrived, our training was all in Spanish, but luckily one of our profs was there to remind us what "adelante" and "atras" and "izquierda" meant so we didn't all paddle the wrong way at the wrong time and go around in circles.

One other student asked us to remind him what to do if we fall in the river, and, relying on our present view of the river and what we were told by other students, we said that no one will fall in so don't even worry about it.

Well, within 4 minutes of entry, we realized that because of a lot of recent rain, the currents were much stronger and water levels higher, and we then saw that our "expectativas" were all wrong. After a few "a delante"s yelled at us, the raft hit a rapid the wrong way. . . and. . . we flipped over!

Stuck under the raft in darkness and with 6 other bodies on top of us, all flowing along a strong current in black as night water was pretty frightening, we must say. But we surfaced soon enough, somehow still in possession of our oar, and managed to lift our legs up as told (we remembered! Oops, we forgot to tell our friend!) so that rocks did not kill us. We then watched as the guide flipped the raft back over (while it was moving with the current!), pull the first of us in, and then manage to grab the rest of us one by one, notably NOT with the assistance of the two kayakers who follow the raft for occasions such as this. Upon reentry into the raft and assuring ourselves that we were all alive and present, we realized that two casualties of this harrowing experience were the aforementioned Marc Jacobs flip flops, but we were willing to exchange these cheap plastic designer goods for our life. However, just then, one of the kayakers pulls up next to the raft and hands us said flip flops as if it was expected of him. We then realized the TRUE reason for the kayakers, which is to preserve our material possessions, for which we were truly grateful, and we are sure Rachel Zoe was also really happy and proud as well.

This does not bode well.

This is right before our dreams of a perfect 10 came crashing down...

But this is what a strong finish looks like.

The rest of the trip was less crazy, we managed to stay in the raft (barely) and make it back for some lunch and pool time and recaps of how we survived the Rio Negro. Video coverage of said survival here:

Mañana it is off to Peru where we meet the fam! We are excited to see them and Peru, but really, we are more excited about the Indian food mom promised to smuggle into the country.

Una Cena Hindu...

2010-11-17T16:07:00.006-05:00

When we think of Diwali, we mostly think of great Indian food, either prepared for us by family, or prepared by us and great friends working together. It thus gave us great sadness that as Diwali approached, the horizon was filled only with the same arroz, carne, platanos, y ensalada that we eat every…single…day here. So you can imagine how happy we were when una amiga, MA, a renowned chef and caterer here in Bogotá, called us and said she was planning on making an Indian feast for Diwali, filled with good food and candles.

We could hardly contain our excitement, and arose early that morning to head to Paloquemao, a giant produce, meat, and flower market here in town. Photos below, courtesy of our classmate and amiga AM, given that our camera is muerta.

"We're picante"

"We're thirsty."

"Joke's on you! We're fresher than your farmer's market's chickens."

We arrived at MA’s apartment, strung up some lights, and started acting as sous-chef immediately. MA was making pakoras, rogan josh (lamb), raita, and rice, served with several different chutneys and lots of vino. Now, we have learned how to make some decent Indian food during our brief time in the kitchen, but never have we attempted to make pakoras, which require dipping chopped vegetables in special batter and deep frying them to the an exact level of crispiness that we thought could only be achieved by those called “mom” or “aunt.” We were thoroughly impressed with MA's mastery in the arts of Indian snacks.

We also partially DJ'ed the evening, and taught a room full of Colombians the art of screwing in the lightbulb and turning the doorknob (aka, bhangra dancing). Overall, a very successful and delicious evening, and it made us miss home that much less!

Disfraces y Disgraces

2010-11-15T13:57:00.005-05:00

We know this is muy tarde, but Halloween (Halloween en español), here was muy loco. CR, JH and we procured some cowboy hats and leather vests and were the gayest cowboys since Ennis and Jack. Our destination was Massai, a club up in the hills overlooking Bogota, with a sort of ET arriving in LA kind of feel. Apparently, the entire city was also going up the hill to La Calera, since the traffic was epic, but at least we encountered things like this along the way:

This thing was actually doing the driving.

People really went all out, there were of course many Chilean Miners, Avatars, and unrecognizable things that were just excuses for people to be shirtless. So really, this phenomenon of using Halloween to be skanky is global.

There were a lot of this kind of thing going on.

Rodney Dangerfield and Jonathan Brandis were smiling down from heaven.

We met up with some new friends of ours, bought bottles of various things, and unfortunately (or fortunately) stayed out until 2 hours before CR and JH had to leave for the airport to go home. In the morning, after we woke up in a cold sweat afraid that they had missed their cab, we ran to the little hotel behind our house, and the lady at the desk informed us that beers were consumed at 6am and were apparently unpaid for. Apparently this is a Colombian hangover (guayabo) cure that CR and JH learned on their own.

Overall, their visit was very successful and we have learned that they have only just recovered...

All the Coolest Travel Destinations Have Day Long Traffic Jams...

2010-11-08T22:13:00.006-05:00

Apparently, when JH travels with friends, the G*ds conspire to stick him in excessive traffic jams with limited amounts of snacks. This happened during his Great Asian Adventure, and it, unfortunately for us, happened again on our journey to Parque Tayrona from Cartegena that sunny Tuesday morning.

The morning started off with promise, when the driver told us he could take us directly to the Park instead of dropping us of in Santa Marta, as we were originally told, from where we would have had to take additional modes of transportation. But soon after we passed the birthplace of Shakira, things went downhill.

Apparently, there was a protest near Santa Marta, during which those fighting the good fight for economic and social justice forced a shutdown of the one road into town, leaving us to fight the heat for 3.5 hours with only a few packets of cookies. Once we realized what was going on, JH quickly emailed EKK and AK, his Asia travel companions, and they advised us to ration the snacks and take care not to share them with any of the strangers on the bus. JH made sure not to share them with the Israeli backpackers behind us, and in return, one of the girls gifted him her cold, but this we did not realize until 24 hours later.

It was hotter than it looks.

The traffic jam forced us to spend the night in Taganga, a small fishing village that has apparently become a destination for European and Israeli backpackers, and a jumping off point for visits to Parque Tayrona. We ended up at a cute hostel that was apparently hosting a model convention of some sort, since everyone there was stunning and shirtless. One tall and handsome boy from Chicago bought a beer at the snack bar and talked to us about our impending move there for 10 minutes before saying that he had to run and take his friend to a doctor because she probably had Yellow Fever. Are there doctors in small fishing villages slash crunchy party towns? We hope that we need not ever answer this question. Also, we give you all permission to buy a beer and chat with strangers for 10 minutes if we are ever facing a potentially life-threatening mosquito-transmitted disease (although we are vaccinated against Yellow Feves for the next 10 years).

After a dinner of sandwiches on baguettes and some beers next to European jugglers, we rested under mosquito nets and headed Parque Tayrona in the morning via two buses. Upon our arrival to the park, we began our three hour adventure through the mud, up hills, and along beaches.

On the way, one German boy asked us to take shirtless pictures of him (with his own camera) lying down on a big rock. Of course, we used this opportunity to take some pictures of him with our own camera as well. However, the camera G*ds must have been angry, because soon thereafter, we tried to cross a large pool of water with our camera in our pocket, and suddenly found ourselves in waist deep in water and our own camera is now dead. DEAD. We hope the blog does not suffer due to this tragedy, but rest assure dear reader(s), we will make amends.

No, seriously, he asked us to do this. (But not to take a picture of us doing it).

After finally reaching Cabo (basically like Cabo in Mexico, with only slightly fewer young, drunk people), we rented some hammocks, changed, and of course, ran into a friend from college, AG, on the beach. AG, being involved the theatre scene in New York, said that when she saw three American boys in short bathing suits on the beach, she figured she had to know at least one of us, and, Lo-han and behold, she did.

The park and its beaches are really something else, and, despite the heat and mosquitoes, we think it’s really one of the most beautiful places we’ve seen. We were sad to leave the next day to head back to Bogota, wary about getting on a plane with mud caked on our legs and sand in our sweaty hair. But the Colombian airport security officials took pity on us and let us on, and we made it back safe and sound.

Still to come, Halloween in Bogota = Loco.

Cartagena!

2010-11-02T22:05:00.008-04:00

We are sorry dear reader(ship) for the long absence, but we were very busy this past week hosting JH and CR in Bogota and elsewhere. It all began last Saturday when they arrived at the airport. Tia M offered to drive us to pick them up, and after JH came out first, she and him spoke in French for 30 minutes and we were left to develop our language skills on our own. Many a tall white person emerged from the arrivals hall, but only the last one was CR.

After settling JH and CR into the hotel/motel/hostel like structure behind the house, we headed to the big gay night club in town, where our hair started to vibrate due to the amount of bass pumping into the venue. Luckily, we were rescued by a new friend JS who showed us that there were in fact 1092812 more rooms in the club, including 2-3 roof terraces where the noise level was seriously reduced.

Sunday, we left for the coastal colonial city of Cartagena, and were greeted with warm sun, which we realized we had been missing here in cool Bogotá. The old city was really charming, despite the fact that it was DRY (as in, not not wet, but no alcohol was sold), because of some elections. The idea of not drinking on election night, (especially today’s), was not something we were used to. CR, JH and we managed to find one bar willing to serve us beer in coffee cups, behind a big plant, in order to evade the authorities.

Si, Cervesa

On Monday, after some yelling in Español at the women who sold us a ride on a boat without telling us that we would need to pay more to get on the dock in order to get on the boat, we ended up at the lovely Playa Blanca, where, praise Xenu, they sold beer. This was especially helpful given that the boat that we paid for had a motor from 1945 that gave out approximately 23 times. During the adventure, however, we made a new friend from Buenos Aires with whom we practiced our Español, and from whom we snagged an invite to her country home! See, from adversity comes great things.

Still to come: street protests, Israeli hippies, and dead cameras…

Our Morning Reading...

2010-10-23T13:40:00.005-04:00

This article was super helpful because it taught us all the vocabulary we need to know for when we and JF open our global celebrity representation practice.

Yes, this is a full page article.

This quote is way harsh.

Me duele la cabeza...

2010-10-23T13:22:00.005-04:00

On Tuesday we started our classes de español at the Nueva Lengua school which resides in a cute white house in the Quinta Camacho neighborhood. There are four people in my class, one Polish girl, a guy from England, and a Dutch girl, all of whom are just as good and just as bad as we are at español. This marks approximately the 187^th time in our lives someone has tried to teach us the subjunctive, but we are determined that we will master this tense by the end our stay here.

Speaking of verb tenses, we had NO idea how many different tenses our coming out story has until we had to translate it into español after someone asked us about it on Wednesday night. We went with A and her amigas to Cavu, a gay bar with a Wednesday night fiesta featuring a drag queen in residence and a mixed crowd of chicos and chicas. Seriously, do we really need the pluperfect subjunctive and the conditional perfect? No.

The bar was fun, despite the shots of aguardiente that did us in and prevented us from remembering a single word of español in class Thursday morning. The other problema is that it is hard enough understanding normal speed Espanol as it is, but when you add many decibles of Shakira on top, it is virtually impossible. One boy asked us “ierouo aosdufaoi hsdkfoisd sdf?” (what we basically heard), and after repeating it 4x and not receiving an answer, he walked away. The ladies were more patient, but maybe that is because they all already had GFs (this is a universal occurrence apparently) and were in no rush.

Never Have We Ever Been So Bad at Never Have I Ever...

2010-10-18T23:16:00.003-04:00

On Saturday we ventured to “El Centro,” the center of town, and known in the guide books as “La Candelaria.” We met up with AO, a historian we met at a party back in NYC last year and with whom we stayed in touch and spoke to when we were contemplating this ciudad for our little adventure. We spoke only in Español, which meant that we only understood 60-70% of what was being said, but having a historian take us around was quite the treat. We travelled around the lovely Plaza Bolivar, with it’s old (Catedral Primada, Capitolio Nacional), and the new (Palacio de Justicia – rebuilt after being stormed by guerillas and an attempted re-taking by the army in 1985), and a whole lot of pigeons. We never understand feeding pigeons as a pastime, but some peeps are apparently really into it.

Catedral Primada

Palacio de Justicia

Capitolio Nacional

AO took us to a café for some tamales, and chocolate santafreño, hot chocolate, with…cheese at the bottom. Yes, cheese. When in Bogotá…

After more sights and an introduction into the cultural world of Bogotá (Museums! Concerts! Exhibits!), we headed back to the Casa for dinner with Tia M. After dinner, we called the cousin of ND, and she offered to come pick us up for some drinks at her friend’s place. Of course, soon enough, we were playing “nunca he hecho,” which for you non- Español speakers is better known as “Never Have I Ever.” In normal situations, only understanding 60-70% of what is being said, though not ideal, is not really a huge problema. However, when one drinks after thinking something means something else, it is a problema because then we are asked for a story, and have no idea what, or better yet, how to even say it. But we got a great lesson in slang that will unfortunately not be on our placement examen tomorrow at school.

After learning the proper words for “tacky,” “trashy,” and “classy,” we headed with a crew to a rooftop discoteca in Zona Rosa (“classy”). Before entering though, we went to the supermarket and bought and shared rum in a small juice-box, on the street (“trashy”).

At the club, no chicas were talking to us, but one amigo promised to take us next week to a place with more chicos, so we stuck it out and had a great time dancing to basically the same 80s playlist we stole from EKK’s “Pure 80’s” CD she probably got from one of those CD drives in high school (“tacky”). (KIDDING, so classy.)

Sunday and today were a bit more relaxing…we basically watched a bunch of dubbed movies, cheated with 1 hour of Mad Men (not dubbed), and visited some museos in El Centro. Class begins mañana! We are currently picking our best back to school outfit and luckily we have new glasses to appear v. serious.

Hasta Pronto!

It Took Us Only 36 Hours to Befriend the Entire Legal Lesbian Community of Bogotá

2010-10-16T11:53:00.011-04:00

Well we had had quite the day on Friday. After resigning ourselves to the fact the citibank is going to charge us 3% of every ATM withdrawal we make, we took out some cash and then headed north with Tia M and her daughter's amiga A.

El Campo

We headed to a "cultivo," essentially a rose farm and packaging factory about 40km outside the City, which reminded us a little bit of that scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (original) where Veruca's dad has the factory going through the chocolate bars to find the golden ticket.

A Rose By Any Other Company Would Not Smell As Sweet

We learned that many of the roses we see and buy last minute at the bodega for mom or someone's performance originate in Colombia, and que bonita!

Baby Rosa

The Finished Product

After a lunch of 3 Empanadas with fresh salsa (yum), we headed to the Zona Rosa/Zona T, where there are shopping malls filled with texting teenagers, much like our hometown of Strong Island. On the escalator, A asked us if we had a novia, and we said, "Uhhhhh." She then got the hint and started explaining where all the gay bars were and which ones were trashy.

Of course, the mall had, not one, but two Juan Valdez Cafes:

Juan was not there, unfortch.

We then contacted AP, who our friend TS in New York introduced us to on Facebook, and she invited us out for Salsa dancing, after some empanadas, natch. It turns out AP is a lawyer in Bogotá and she and her partner hang out with lots of other legal lesbians, who all love Salsa dancing and being very nice to random foreigners. Now, we thought we had rhythm, but AP and her girls were finding the beat in bizarre syncopated rhythms that we could barely comprehend. Salsa may have originated in New York, but it's not the New Yorkers who can keep up. AP also mentioned that her human rights org might need some research help, so now we not only have gay friends here, but a possible internship.

So far, the empanada count is at 5, but expect that to change very soon, folks.

We Have Llegar-ed!

2010-10-15T01:05:00.003-04:00

We have arrived in Bogotá! La casa where we are staying is full of wonderful people and wireless internet, so we think it's going to be a great stay here. We don't start our clases de español until Tuesday, so there is plenty of time for exploration and we hope to have much to report very soon.

Everyone on the plane on the way down here was enfermo (that means sick), but we changed the direction of the little air nozzle thing every time someone coughed to blow their germs back towards them, which we think might have worked. Also, we just drank some really fresh fruit juice of some sort, so we think we might be OK for now.

Of course, every line we chose today was the slow moving one - and that was not just our perception. Literally the other security line at JFK moved at 2x the speed as ours, and the other immigration line at BOG moved 8x as fast. But given what our country does to foreign visitors, we cannot be too mad. We just felt bad because Tia M (our hostess) was waiting for us with the cutest sign ever. Also, we did not get off to the greatest start since we didn't understand a word the immigration officer said to us (though he let us in, so we might have done OK), but we got our grove back with Tia M, which is good because she just yelled at us when we said one word in English by accident so we don't really have a choice.

Mañana it's off to the banco and telefono store and learning not to get lost.

Eating Our Way Through Chicago

2010-10-11T21:39:00.009-04:00

Basically we have not stopped eating since we arrived here in Chicago. Our friend JO sent us a Chowhound post he wrote after a recent trip here, which has served as a helpful guide. It also helps that we are staying with JL, whose mother describes him as a cross between Zagat and a GPS, but who himself says he's better than Zagat. We do not disagree.

Despite our love of the very tasty Vietnamese, Sichuan and Indian food here (we are partial to the foods from Asia), we have really enjoyed our introduction in the Lettuce Entertain You® family of restaurants. First we hit Mon Ami Gabi® in the stately Belden-Stratford with KMZ and JL, and even though the waitress hurled insults at JL's choice of steak, we had a delightful time. On Saturday, we loaded up on carbs with CH, JL and ZH at R.J. Grunts as CH prepared for the Marathon (despite the fact that CH didn't eat anything and JL, ZH and we were not actually running the marathon). R.J. Grunts is famous for its Salad Bar, which apparently was the first of its kind. CH was not impressed, but anywhere where you can put processed shredded cheddar on your salad and top it with Thousand Island is heaven for us.

We have so taken to the Lettuce Entertain You® brand that we have started to collect the collectable wallet sized mini-brochures from each Lettuce Entertain You® establishment we frequent (even though ZH collects them even if he HASN'T been there, but we don't judge). We cannot in fact wait to come back here in December to start expanding our collection at places like Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba!® and Wow Bao®. For our friends in the DC metro area - note that you have four options yourself, so we hope you will try out these establishments if you have not already. We have also joined the Frequent Diner Club®, and cannot wait to achieve Silver Status like JL (though it probably didn't hurt that he was Bar Mitzvahed at at Lettuce Entertain You® establishment - but we are sure he would have gotten Gold status if his Bar Mitzvah had a theme).

And with that, our time in Chicago has come to its end. In addition to the food, we enjoyed the crazy 70-80 degree weather over the last 7 days, and we trust this will be the case when we return in December, especially since such weather results in greater numbers of nice corn-fed boys running along the Lake sans shirts. A big shout out to JL and ZH for hosting us this past week - and their lovely Miss Meaty, whom we have named best cat for her failure to make us sneeze or cringe in fear.

Back in NYC tomorrow for a brief 36 hour layover.

The "Vowel Song" in the Alphabet Musical We Did in First Grade Would Have Sounded Different Here...

2010-10-07T12:52:00.006-04:00

Early on during our freshman year of college, we went to brunch in a dining hall with some friends. JH was there, and many of us got from the service line a couple of those well known round flat things usually made from a box and served in the mornings with syrup and maybe some butter and fruit. Once we sat down, someone asked JH what he called said round flat doughy breakfast item. “Oh, flayaaapjacks,” said he.

First of all, we had never heard pancakes referred to as “flapjacks.” But more shockingly, we had never heard the aah sound pronounced “aaayaaa” before. This is because we didn’t really know any Midwesterners until then, and never imagined that anyone would distort the /æ/ phoneme in such a manner. (JH to this day denies this event ever happened, as if he could scrub out the history of his aaayyyaaccent the way he actually has actually (or nearly) eliminated the traces of said aaayyaaaccent.)

Now that we are spending more than just a layover in this town, we are hyper aware of the aaayyaaaccent around us. “Have you seen Baaayyaad Saayyaaanta?” one friend asked another. On the local news yesterday, a small plane crashed into a local gym, and one resident said, “I caayyaan’t believe no one was hurt.”

Our cousins in London and India will tell you that we tend to adopt the accent of those around us when speaking, so we are quite fearful for what we will sound like by the end of this week, and more fearful for what we might sound like after we come back from our travels and live here for a whole year. Also, our own last name contains an /æ/ in the first syllable, so when we start introducing ourselves with the aaayyyaaa distortion, please send help.

We Will FINALLY Have a Dishwasher! Our Un-moisturized Dry Hands Thank Us.

2010-10-06T09:47:00.000-04:00

Apartment hunting in Chicago already seems a lot easier than New York. Not that we would really know what apartment hunting in New York is like, since we have actually never really done it. Right after college, we went traveling around the world for three months (just like this three months except less singing without musical accompaniment) and left our roommate EKK to do all the work. When we returned, we were all, "so EKK, what is the deal," and she rolled her eyes and told us where (and with whom) we were going to live. (Thanks EKK!) When, three years later, we moved to the UES of Manhattan, the apartment was already occupied by our sister, so...we already knew where it was. That said, we have heard many of you incessantly complain about apartment hunting and are besties with a v. prominent New York broker so we can only imagine the headaches and heartaches the process causes.

Anyway, the first thing is that apparently the landlords here pay brokers' fees, so it's already a win. Second, instead of walking around the City all day or shoving to get cabs, you get driven around in the broker's SUV. Third, THESE APARTMENTS ARE HUGE. I mean, there was one giant duplex that I couldn't furnish if I tried WITH an outdoor deck and working fireplace. Why did we slave away in NYC all this time? OUTDOOR DECK PEOPLE!! WORKING FIREPLACE! Can you imagine turning a place down because it's too BIG? We did that yesterday.

However, our main concern about apartments, we have realized, is how long we will have to be outside before getting on a train or bus during the months of January-March and November-December. As some of you may know, we are not a creature of the cold and so our very survival here is at stake. Apparently, though, anything goes here with respect to winter coats, we we are totally going to get that down one with the hood that goes down to one's ankles that we have yet to see worn by a man, gay or straight.

But maybe New York transplants here are the trendsetters? We can hope.

We Had Alicia and Jay-Z's "New York" Stuck in Our Head All Day but Now We Must Move On to Either Chicago the Band or Chicago the Musical.

2010-10-05T10:04:00.007-04:00

Well, since we are now jobless for a fixed three-month period, we have decided to put the fun back in funemployment and, yes, you guessed it, BLOG AGAIN! We know you have been waiting for this day for months, and it is now upon us, Praise Xenu.

Right now we are at a Chicago coffee shop at a communal table with no straight people and no one not wearing cute eyewear or using a Macbook Pro. Put another way, there are 5 gays at this table and all of us have adorable glasses. Yes, this includes us, who, after months of staring at Westlaw.com all day has developed a slight near-sightedness. We often longed for the day we would need glasses because we imagined we’d look cute and trendy in them, and now that day has come, and we must say, we were right, we do in fact look cute and trendy in them. We thought about getting Brad G type glasses, but settled on some rather severe women’s frames instead from the v. cheap but v. trendy Warby Parker. Now people take us seriously as a lawyer, but that perceived seriousness is counterbalanced by the fact that we are not presently employed or in any way involved with the law. Also, we are constantly cleaning these things, so after a few more smudges we may start to regret this whole Clark Kent transformation. But for now, we can read things far away and see with clarity, and take them off slowly for dramatic effect, so there.

Anyway, many of you may have heard us incessantly talking about our travel plans and imminent move to Chicago for the year of 2011, and now instead of hearing us yap about it, you can silently read about it on a daily basis as we document our adventures in Colombia, Peru, London and India, and our eventual transition to this windy City.

This week will involve some apartment hunting and getting to know the various neighborhoods. For example, we already have learned where Oprah's apt(s) are, and we have told our broker that we want to live in one of her guest rooms so we can ensure our receipt of tickets for the FAREWELL SEASON and finally meet Nate B. We will keep you posted!

Until then,

xoxo

Fishwatch

My Voice for The Voice...

2010-06-28T23:39:00.002-04:00

An audio file of me singing the solo and trio of New Hymn by James Taylor, a cappella...

Pick me, pick me!

It Hurts Our Liver to Even Write This...

2009-05-10T20:52:00.003-04:00

Since we last spoke, we have (1) run a half marathon, (2) retaken to the bottle, and (3) welcomed a new family member in the world. Each in turn, people, please have patience.

(1) The Half Thon was a very fun experience, we hope to recreate it at some point, or move on the the full one. After reflecting on this event and the "sprint" triathlon we did a few years ago (half the olympic distance), we are beginning to think maybe we are best suited for half things since they sound really hard ("oooohhh, a triathlon," and "ahhhhhhh - a Marathon!"), but really only half the effort goes into it. But maybe it's time we undertook the whole thing, at the very least, just for shirts to wear later. We'd also like to give a shout out to our dad who also ran the race and did very well.

(2) Since the half-thon is over, our half (or fully) dumb idea to give up booze during training has ended. Since the race was a week ago, we have obviously been out drinking 7 times, wanted to die the morning after at least 6 of them, and have seriously considered going back to train for something if only to be spared this horrible feeling in our heads, stomachs, and elbows. We started off with beer with meals, and graduated to wine after work, but this weekend it was all standards and class thrown aside, and we went for the $2 mojitos and $4 well drinks on Friday and (free) watermelon gin fizzes on someone's roof the next day. Our liver was not ready for these kinds of things and now hates us.

(3) Our cousin had a baby! She is so cute, we die, and now want 1209382 babies of our own asap. Baby daddies out there - call us!

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It's Offish Y'all!

2009-04-21T22:34:00.002-04:00

Today we were sworn in to the Bar, which for all you non-lawyers means we can now be disbarred for co-mingling funds, stealing other people's money, or otherwise being a horrible human being.

Yesterday was our "interview," which consisted of the following:

Interviewer: So, tell me you have a job.
FW: Praise Xenu, we do.
Interviewer: Oh, I see you went to Y.U. for undergrad. Do you know Guido Calabresi?
FW: Judge Calabresi? Um...not personally, no.
Interviewer: Did you know he was Jewish?
FW: Hm, we did not.
Interviewer: With a name like Guido, who would've thought, huh?
FW: Yes, that is interesting.
Interviewer: Do you have any unpaid parking tickets?
FW: No. We can barely afford a bike, and you expect us to have a car?
Interviewer: Welcome to the profession. Good luck to you.

And that was that.

Today we sat through a 2 hour orientation, which talked all about how sucky being a young lawyer is, but that you should remember not to hit reply all by accident when making fun of someone at your place of employment. Also, if you are drinking before your court appearances, you likely have a problem and should seek help. If only.

And then we went up to the courhouse to take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of New York State. And we didn't mess up, unlike someone else we know. And then we had our second shake shack burger of the week.

So there it is folks, we are now officially Fishwatch, Esq. It has been a long journey to get to this point, so we'd like to give a shoutout to all those who made it possible, and to our reader(ship), who has been cheering us along on the journey.

Crying in the Rain

2009-04-12T15:53:00.003-04:00

When we arose yesterday morning, we were excited and ready to go for our 10K race in The Central Park as part of our half-thon training program (which we made up ourselves, so it's nothing official or even practical, but that's ok). Instead of looking out of the window, we instead relied on people's facebook updates to inform us that it was in fact raining, and then checked the weather on the internets only to learn that it was in fact raining and would continue to do so all morning. "We can deal with a little rain," we told ourselves as we put on a cap and some water-resistant outer layers.

Well not only was it raining, but it was in fact freezing as well, but we were compelled to continue on to the start at the southwest corner of the park b/c all these people from our neighborhood were also en route (you can always pick out the race go-ers on the UES on weekend mornings, they have the same look on their face as we do -- the one that says, "this seemed like a good idea when I signed up for it, but I would really rather be in bed"). Anyway, we get on the cross-town bus and make it to the registration booth, near which, soaked bagpipers were playing tunes in honor of the "Scotland" theme of the race, which we guess someone took a little too far given the conditions. After standing in mud to get our free t-shirt, we honestly thought long and hard about going home and back to bed now that we had received our swag, but we ran into some friends who told us that they would laugh at us if we did that and who pointed out that we were already soaked, so who cares. We caved, and proceeded to run the 10K, looking absolutely ridiculous with a free Scotland themed poncho on, but ended up not feeling all that bad about it.

Except when the "cool down" period began and we were litterally shivering, and then picked up our bag which was now soaked and covered in mud, and the color of which bled into our new Scotland Run t-shirt, which is unsalvageable now. Also, we are sure the pneumonia is setting in about now, despite our taking 2 Airbornes and 1 Emergen-C's yesterday, but that is the price one must pay, we guess, to be able to update their "status updates" about how athletic, and thus desireable, they are.

Momofck YES!

2009-03-30T21:13:00.004-04:00

Well the food gods must have read our last post, since after posting it, we secured not one, but TWO reservations to the coveted restaurant Momofuku Ko. Did you read that Frank Bruni? TWO MOTHER F-ING RESY's. Wow that felt good.

Anyway, so we made our first on Sunday morning for Saturday night, after which we danced in our PJs around our living room, and bragged to everyone we knew, only to discover that our cousin's baby shower was Saturday night and not during the day. Who knew? So, we logged on Monday am to see what luck we might have on the 1980s era work computer - and lo(han) and behold - we got one for Sunday night! I mean I guess there are not that many people up for eating on Sunday night at 9:50, but after a lifetime of drinking heavily at Hiro and Park and other such Sunday night establishments, we certainly knew we could scarf down some pork and foie gras on a school night. So we cancelled the Saturday night one and headed to Long Island for some 8 course (basically) Indian food-fest, which, we must say basically rivaled Ko's level of yummyness.

But back to Ko. Since we're off the booze (and had work the next day), we had to pass on the wine pairing, which looking kind of amazing, but the food was good enough to make up for our inner semi-alcoholic yelling at us. Likes: this small biscuit thing soaked in butter and goodness, and the smoked egg with caviar and potato chips, and the sirloin in jalapeno something or the other. Dislikes - the snail sausauge was kind of yuck, but interesting we guess.

Well, since we are so good at securing this resy now, feel free to ask us to book for all y'all. Although, we wonder whether we have used up all our Ko luck. Meanwhile, chef David Chang has been named an "Agent of Change" by Rolling Stone Magazine, which is not surprising, since we kept chanting "Yes We Can" as our stomachs filled and we questioned our ability to eat anymore.

Momof**k* you.

2009-03-19T10:25:00.004-04:00

We have now been trying daily for many months to secure a reservation at Momofuku Ko, that tiny restaurant that everyone raves about all the time and is small and hard to get into (if not secret and elite), so it must be good. Basically it involves logging into the reservation system every day at 10am, and trying your bestest to click on a time slot and confirm it in .00021332 seconds before it says “sorry, someone else has grabbed this spot.” We have found this to be virtually impossible, especially since our work computer is from circa 1988 and we swear that sometimes it is secretly dialing prodigy or AOL behind our backs to log on to the internets.

More famous writers/bloggers have blogged about this reservation struggle before, but the other night we met a total cutie who informed us that he himself had been the subject of one of these writer/blogger’s post about this very restaurant, and that he has secured many a reservation by the use of tabs and perseverance. Perseverance we have, but tabs, we asked? Yes, tabs. Now, we are very familiar with tabs since we tabbed and bound our outlines in law school like a crazy person, but never before had we considered using our leftover tabs to mark on our screen where the mouse should be to ensure a quicker clicking time and thus a coveted reservation.

Well last night we tried to mark the screen with tabs so today we would be ready, but the problem with this is we sit in open pods at work, as you may know, and so everyone walking by our desk could see us clicking “refresh” 12318298 times with tabs on our screen. We are embarrassed for ourselves. So 9:59:58 am rolls around, and we count to two and click, and click on dinner, and go to choose party of “2,” but our 1980s era mouse freezes up and instead clicks on 1. Epic fail. We could have paid $100+ to eat by ourselves, but we can do that at home with our melancholy playlist on for much cheaper. We guess we will tab again tonight and try again tomorrow. Maybe by the time we get a reservation, the recession will be over and it won’t be as painful shelling out this kind of dough.

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If You Give Us Health Insurance Then Next Thing You Know We May Want Tax Benefits. THE HORROR.

2009-03-13T09:27:00.010-04:00

According to today's New York Times:

"Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values, a conservative advocacy group, said that if Mr. Obama extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal workers, he would 'provoke a furious grass-roots reaction, reinvigorate the conservative coalition and undermine his efforts to portray himself as a moderate on social issues.'"

Really? A grass-roots movement sparked because someone wants health insurance for their spouse? People are ABSURD.

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Then Again, If We Did Have Any Savings, It Would Likely Have Been in Bank Stocks...

2009-03-10T14:54:00.006-04:00

Sorry for the delay in posting, but our parents were in town this weekend, and getting fed as much as we possibly could in 48 hours was very time consuming and left very little time for blogging. We started off the weekend eating at Teodora, a Best Lasagne winner in NY Mag’s “Best Of” issue, where we saw some friends (AR, CC) who also apparently read NY Mag. No offense to that esteemed publication, but the Lasagne at Max is half the price and half the gooeyness, so, as Jerri Blank was once told, “go with what you know.” Which is what we did the rest of the weekend -- hitting up our aunt’s cooking and South Indian Vegetarian (and Kosher!) places in Curry Hill and other such regular institutions.

The nice thing about our parents’ visits is that they used to live in the area before venturing south, so they know their way around, have friends here to keep them occupied when we slip away to go gay (our review of what it is like to be at Pieces on a Saturday night SOBER is forthcoming), and they generally do not require any baby-sitting whatsoever. But one thing they have quickly forgotten is how expensive things are here in our great urban metropolis. “You pay HOW MUCH for a haircut!?!?!” our father yelled at us as we showed up newly groomed. “I can get these sheets at the factory outlet for ½ the price” our mother said as we shopped for higher threat counts. “I can’t believe people pay this much for wine glasses” she continued as we were in the $1.00 section of Fishs Eddy. Meanwhile, a recession looms around us and our savings account stands at $0.23, so how can we really argue with such a fiscal outlook on life. Perhaps immigrant parents should have been running the Treasury Dept during the 2000s – Bear Sterns might still be around, toasting their success with 3-for-a-dollar wine glasses.

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We Knew Not To Ask for "Rent" or "Wicked" Since We Would Have Been Shunned...

2009-03-04T18:25:00.006-05:00

Last night we hit Marie’s Crisis (after “I’m getting the hell out of NYC” straight drinks with SH and friends). We thought we wouldn’t be up for singing anything, but of course when the songs from Company started on the out of tune piano, we really lost it and started belting about Another Hundred People and Being Alive. The best part of the evening, however, was when Malan from Project Runway spilled vodka on us and said “it’s raining vodka” and then did his Malan from Project Runway scary laugh. Some tourist then took out her video camera to document her and her gay friend’s night in NYC and Malan immediately assumed they were filming him so ran away. He then came back to join in “What I Did For Love” and “One,” natch.

But seeing him got us thinking -- when you go on a reality show to get ahead in your profession (i.e., PR, Top Chef, Make me a Supermodel, Boy Meets Boy (?)), and all the gays in NYC then know who you are and see you out, do you feel self conscious that everyone can accurately gauge your level of success in your field? We mean, we have a hard enough time making up and exaggerating how successful we are, but if everyone saw where we stood in the world of non-profit lawyering on national tv (that would be a terrible show, btw), how could we convince people (meaning love interests) we were the next best thing in public interest advocacy and thus worth dating?

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Confessions of a Former Medium Alcoholic

2009-03-02T18:03:00.007-05:00

So we are trying this thing where we don’t drink. It started because of some meds, but we liked it so much that now we are full fledged teetotalers. We are also training for this half-marathon, and find that our weekly long runs are soooo much easier when not hung over. Who knew? Also, we can go out until 3am and still wake up for Meet the Press! The best of both worlds.

At first, we really questioned our will power and thought that eating at restaurants would prove the most difficult since the sight of a glass of red wine on white tablecloth usually makes us salivate and pant, like an alcoholic Pavlovian puppy. But the ultimate test came on Saturday night, when we were in a room of 129310283 gay people at our friend’s Chelsea housewarming – and where the booze was free flowing and boys appropriately stand-offish. We usually find that we need booze in times like these to make jokes and be funny, but since we have given up being funny (for another post), it was really easy to refill our cup with the lime flavored club soda instead of vodka and ice. Mind you, we went home alone, so maybe this whole experiment is flawed. But maybe that’s because we basically spent the whole party talking about how fun not drinking is, which we think should NOT be part of the plan.

Not to mention this thing is saving us a whole slew of cash. And since we are obsessed with our monthly spending pie chart on Mint.co m, we are so pleased to see our “alcohol” piece reserved only for the requisite bottle of wine we have to show up places with, and not for that 6th tanqueray and tonic that we definitely didn’t need. Somehow, though, the food section of our spending pie chart is higher than normal, which makes us think we are subconsciously replacing liquor with soup dumplings. Mmmmm, soup dumplings – gotta go.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

2009-02-25T23:41:00.006-05:00

When we got to Pam Real Thai to meet up with TO and LH for dinner tonight, we were welcomed by balloons strewn about, flowers taped to the walls, and streamers hanging on the window, because, as luck would have it, it was Pam's [something] Anniversary, which meant 20% off everything! This made us feel a little better about being late, despite the fact, we might add, that tonight we were honored with the "most punctual" award by our tennis team. Yes, we are on a tennis team.

Anyway, this whole 20% off thing only allowed us to overeat more than we usually do at Pam Real Thai, so this meant we did NOT order a popcorn when we got to Lincoln Center for a screening of this hilarious 1981 movie, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, starring a very young Diane Lane (see pic) and a very young, but exactly the same looking Laura Dern. Seriously, some of the fashions in this movie were amazing, and we are surely going to think long and hard about these looks again when Halloween approaches. Do you think Diane Lane in 1981 ever thought she would make such movies as Under the Tuscan Sun (which we loved), and Nights in Rodanthe (which we would never go see)? We hope not. Also, if anyone has any verification that "You Give Love a Bad Name" was actually written about Diane Lane, please do tell.

Anyway, we then arrived home to catch the Top Chef finale, which provided the best line of the season - Padma saying about Stefan's dessert - "it was pedestrian at best." You know she heard Salman Rushdie say that a few times and vowed to keep it in her arsenal for the right moment, and relished the fact that she finally got to say it in Season 5, during the finale. Well done, Padma. At least that marriage was good for something.

Did You Miss Us? Our Site Monitor Says "No."

2009-02-24T15:29:00.004-05:00

Every time we take a hiatus from blogging, our body just doesn't feel right for some reason. Not in the "changes" way that happened when we were 12 or 13, but in a restless leg syndrome or ADD kind of way.

Maybe the problem has gotten worse recently because of the first few hundred pages of Atlas Shrugged, which we are currently reading ("to prove to yourself you're your public interest law career is a waste of time?" asked our friend's right-wing father the other night at a dinner). In it, a few of the characters have said that the worst thing in the whole entire world is a man without a purpose. Is our purpose blogging about meaningless things? Perhaps.

Anyway, since the Bar exam experience is behind us (praise Xenu!), and we opted out of taking more of them just for fun, like some of our friends in California and Mass this week, what will we talk about? This shall remain a mystery. While our devoted fan(s) and we may not have the shared experience of day to day life at law school or bar prep, there still may be things in the world that warrant commentary. Like Top Chef. Or our mother. Or the working world and how it smells bad (but that we are thankful to have a job).

This blogging thing may get difficult at some points, because at work we sit in "pods," and our boss sits directly behind us and can at any point turn around and see what is on our screen. Oftentimes this has included facebook.com, gmail, Gossip Girl recaps, and fashion week reviews, so really, what is a little blogger here and there.

So get ready for another iteration of Fishwatch. We are beginning to feel like those "gay nights" that have moved around the City for the last 5 years, only to die a slow, painful, poorly attended death in the 30s on the West side. But we will try our best to keep a downtown, well-attended, open bar feel to this whole experience. Meanwhile, special shout-outs to ET and MC who are bar taking in other states this week. May the force be with y'all.

Mazel Tov.

2008-07-31T00:13:00.003-04:00

Congrats to everyone for being dunzo with this miserable little experience. We will likely be back blogging in February to let you all know what it is like to re-take this puppy since today was impossible. At least at this moment we are drunker than we can say.

Hope you all have a great month off and please think of us fondly as you sit on the beach or your couch or wherever the next few weeks.

xoxo.
FW

We Wrote A Song Called "Death To ExamSoft" To The Tune of The SoftTest Tech Support Hold Synthesizer Musak...

2008-07-29T20:20:00.009-04:00

Hello from hell.

We write to you during our third attempt to get through to a SoftTest tech support person (and by "a" person, we apparantly mean "the" person since there must be no more than one). When we did the whole auto-upload, we got a big fat error message for our AM message. We then tried the manual upload, and...you guessed it, no luck.

From 6-6:41, we stayed on hold, hoping that everytime the automated voice interruped the insufferable hold "musak" that it was an actual person. Instead, it was some woman telling us to check our exam upload history online. Um, thanks, we did that bee-yotch, and it's not there.

We then hung up and took a breather, and then spent 7-7:55 also on hold. Thinking that something must be wrong, we hung up and now we are on hold, yet again. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking down toward 11:59PM EST when our three AM session essays turn from 4 1/2 (rounded to 5) to a big fat 0.

Did we mention that this hold music makes us want to die? We don't get it, did they go home for the day?

At least there was no earthquake in NYC today, so I guess we have something to be thankful for...although that option is seeming better right now.

Update 10:10pm: Praise Xenu, it finally worked, so our 4 and 1/2's are restored.

It's The Day Before The Day of the Show, Y'all!

2008-07-28T14:44:00.006-04:00

We, along with JH, JG, and AA went to see The Dark Knight this morning (9:30am Imax), and much to our surprise, the theater was packed. We thought maybe all the peeps in town for the Bar had the same idea as us - (which was to chill out with a really really dark and emotionally draining movie with lots of explosions and fighting), but we were the only ones doing flashcards during the previews and spotting the hearsay exception during a trial.

Anyway, we know what you are all thinking at this point, and we will all be fine, don't you worry my little reader(ship). Everyone has worked hard, even if that hard work included blogging or reading this blog, eating non-stop, napping, and incessant complaining. In fact, we have been destined for this day since birth, as shown by the 1984 New Yorker cartoon to the left (slash who among us was born in 1984 besides JF?) (Also, please don't tell on us for committing copyright infringement).

We urge you all to take the evening off and watch some Hills reruns or catch up on Project Runway and not to think too hard about how miserable the next two days will be. We hope you see you all well rested and ready to bring it in the early hours of dawn. Best of luck to all.

xoxo,
FW

Exclusive: FishWatch Flashcard Exposé

2008-07-25T15:43:00.016-04:00

In these trying economic times of rising fuel costs, many people around the country have eschewed their hummers and Range Rovers and opted for more economic vehicles including the Yaris or Prius and such as. Much like these economically and environmentally conscious citizens, many Bar takers have thought long and hard about the size of the flashcards they created and used to study for this miserable little test. Some hoped the economy would stabilize or decided to ignore the bad signs. Others planned ahead and saved money and trees by going small. Very small.

We begin our expose with those who have decidedly chosen against economy and green-ness, and have retained larger than life flashcards for their larger than life personas.

Despite his Canadian roots, CG has basically said "F. you" to the environment and cost-consciousness as he travels around the study area flaunting these monstrous 4x6 flashcards, leaving many Bar takers to wonder how sustainable such practices really are.

Maybe the strength of the Canadian dollar helped this decision?
(Yes that is a NANO)...

In addition to making our lives miserable with books and books of impossible questions, PMBR also chose to make some people's daily lives difficult - those who were lucky enough to get their hands on them had to carry around these gi-normous flashcards, (note: also with impossible questions)...

And weren't silver hoops so SAT vocab circa 1998?

FishWatch himself went for a more middle ground option, with the standard 3x5 flashcards, balancing cost, environmental friendliness, and the need to pack in as much info as humanly possible on each since we made so few...

Notice the coffee stains on "Antenuptual Agreements,"
which we see as bad sign for our future...

And yes, our Nano screen did crack...

JH cut his 3x5 cards in half (we know because he complains about the paper cutting machine in the supply room non-stop). But we cannot make too much fun, since he lets us borrow these sometimes, and they easily fit in shirt pockets and Uniqlo skinny jeans back pockets for when you want to do some on your way to Beige, and then put them away before any normal people see you...

And they are color-coordinated! Great work, JH.

Candid!

We may never know what a Holder in Due Course is,
but at least we can look good learning.

Finally, SB (née T) sent in some photos of her tiny cards - 3x5's cut in 1/4ths!!! This is really forward thinking, b/c they can easily be turned into earrings or pendants after the exam.

Mind you, those are the small binder clips...

Believe it or not, that Goyard bag is full of these little puppies...

We wish all of you good luck this final weekend - flashcard users and non-users alike. If you see any flashcard users out on the streets this weekend - please do send in pics as we are interested to see how they hold up against the elements.

xoxo.
FW

Dylan Lauren Could Make A Killing If She Set Up Shop Near Us...

2008-07-23T17:58:00.011-04:00

Apparently every day requires something harmful and addictive to get through the day. Yesterday, it was alcohol. Today, it is candy and baked goods.

JH's mom shipped him more jelly bellies, Swedish fish, and peachy penguins after he single handedly ate the entire previous shipment. At least this time he decided to share...

When we went to visit people in other parts of the war zone to see how they were holding up, we were confronted with this...

and this...

and this...

We are praying for passage for everyone, if only because candy and cookies are marked up 200% or so in February b/c of Valentine's Day...

...

Bar Takers, FishWatch Resort to Alcoholism...

2008-07-22T15:56:00.005-04:00

Apparently, the time has come to hit the bottle (or can). Last night, after a miserable day of same old, same old, DK took off and soon walked back into the study area with two pint-sized cans of beer. "Who are those for," we asked. "Me," he responded. "You and...," we continued. "No, no...just me," said DK. And he was not kidding:

"Maybe recording statutes aren't so boring after all..."

Real Bar Takers of Genius drink Bud Light.

We soon followed his lead, but went for PBR while JH opted for the "keg can" of Heineken. But the beer, snacks and utter boredom soon took their toll on our workspace...

At least it looks like we are working hard - obvs that is what is most important....

NY Practice Essay #23402390293 Graded Answer

2008-07-21T19:32:00.007-04:00

Name: FishWatch Essay Question: #23402390293

B-Bri ID: 24601 Grader Number: 666

Essay Grade: 2 and 1/2

Answer:

The issue is whether FW will survive this week. (1/2 - you may also want to raise the issue of breaking out or not being able to sleep.)

In New York, people who sit in one place, complain non stop, eat constantly and fall asleep on the carpet under the desk often don't survive. (1/2 - The rule is also that excessive iced coffee intake also leads to a lack of survival.)

In this case, FW has sat in one place for hours, complained incessantly, eaten an entire box of trader joe's wheat thins that were not even his, and fallen asleep under the desk leaving carpet burns on his face. (1 point - OK analysis, but needs more.)

Thus, it is likely he will not survive this week. (1/2 point - HOW? Explain this here.)

Grader Comments: More IRAC. Be better at spotting issues.

Looney Tunes...

2008-07-18T17:33:00.007-04:00

If last night's post is any indication, many of us have gone nutzo. If you need further proof, please take a look at the board in the room we and JH have camped out in. We have paid homage to P.Franz (despite realizing that she didn't really help us that much on property since we understand 0 of it, and in fact confused us on something as simple as cashing a check), and also left some property to Pizza Box, with a future interest in Joe's Pizza. Go ahead and categorize the interests, if you can.

Please Send Help.

FishWatch Style Exclusive: Who Wore It Best?

2008-07-17T21:18:00.007-04:00

Some people take these last weeks to mean they are allowed to wear sweats and matching velor track suits. But some chic Bar takers and FishWatch readers know you have to dress for the MBE score you want!

We asked 100 people in the Law Libes, Who Wore It Best?

Charlize tied her B-bri ID with a bow by Galliano for Dior at the 2006 Oscars....

But SL went for a simpler look, and
bowed her ID with the B-bri Lanyard, pairing it with a sparkly silver vest.

Mary Kate paired her B-bri Gallon Bag with a black long sleve mini and clunky silver...

But CH paired hers with Think Coffee and a pink mini, matching her ID inside!

Carbs, Beer, Mawwage, Divorce...

2008-07-15T14:18:00.005-04:00

How many cookies did you people eat during class today? Don't lie to us. As we said, anything goes during Bar prep, and so we had about 4 kosher black and white ones and 2 and 1/2 chocolate chip ones and were tempted to fill the gallon bag with the leftovers on the way out, but resisted.

At the beginning of class, regional regional assistant director E.Fine said that we are going to have the best vacation of our lives in August, even if it only involves our backyard, a keg, and a straw. Did this sound amazing to anyone else? We might just rearrange our August plans.

Additionally, all this talk of "registry" and "children" really did make us want to find a husband, go to Williams Sonoma with the bar code gun, and draft our very own New York Times Wedding Announcement. We texted JF to see if she wanted to register too, but she noted that no one was going to want to get engaged to people in danger of failing the Bar.

Finally, we are so happy we are caught up to speed on divorce since we plan to push for the clinical law program here to start a celebrity divorce clinic, and hire us as clinic fellow. Will keep you posted.

Depression, BDP, Bankers, etc.

2008-07-14T12:51:00.005-04:00

Did anyone notice the "Supporting Student Learning, Overcoming Depression" seminar that happened right next door to our B-Bri classroom last month? We just noticed the sign today:

This seems very appropriate and also conveniently located. Too bad we were still beaching it and taking things easy back on June 21st. Had this seminar been held this week, however, we would certainly have attended since the panic and depression have really set in.

This weekend we were pretty close to Brokedown Palace (BDP) mode as we reviewed our outlines right before doing practice qs and still got them all wrong. On Friday we almost lost it when at dinner at BLT Burger, we were reviewing Corps flashcards, and some douchey banker types who were talking about risk allocation turned to us and said sarcastically, "your conversation is really scintillating, what the F are you doing." We are sorry, we were not CHOOSING to talk finance on a Friday night, unlike you people, so don't mock us. We then asked them a question about stock record dates and they got it wrong, so we felt better. Also the fries and double milkshake (with whipped cream) made us feel better (as JH says, you can eat anything you want during Bar prep).

The next two weeks are going to be dark people, so prepare yourself. Anyone who did attend the above seminar, please chime in with helpful tips.

PFranz Doesn't Read The Blogs, FishWatch Dies Inside...

2008-07-11T14:26:00.006-04:00

Sad news! PFranz admitted that "there are blogs...and websites," but added that "she doesn't read them." We died. Luckily, she did admit that she hears about them, so we retain hope that her entourage informs her of the love FishWatch and its fan(s) have been bestowing upon her.

Anyone who can find the blog that says a kitten dies everytime she sings gets a free P-Franz T-shirt, pictured, as we plan to have a full on blogger war with said blog.

Also, as we went to grab some food, we were attacked by a pack of wild, ferocious poodles! We kid you not (photos below!). Alas, there were only 3 of them, and Mad FIFI3 just doesn't have that same ring to it, so we didn't even practice our pneumonic...

En route towards FishWatch, planning their "real defenses" attack.

Post-Attack, but they forgot the fourth "I," Insolvency...

Sorry for the Lack of Posts But That "Fear" That They Said Would Come Actually Did Come...

2008-07-08T20:23:00.010-04:00

As you all know by now, the Javtiz Center is a dump. We are basically taking the Bar at a glorified bus terminal with three different climate zones in one room (on our walk to the bathroom from our seat, we had to remove 3 layers, and of course put them back on during the walk back).

What you did not know was that not all "Exits" at the Javitz Center are actually "Exits." Like the one ND, JH and we walked out of during the lunch break on Sunday. When we went out of the door marked with a big "Exit" sign, we entered what seemed to be the aftermath of nuclear war, where only roaches and aspiring lawyers could survive. When we continued walking, we, and all the other lemmings we followed, realized we were trapped! See, e.g., infra:

False Imprisonment? We think yes.

Can you imagine if this was actual Bar day? These people would be SHRIEKING in anger and stress.

Luckily our beach diet finally paid off, and we were able to escape. Others were not so lucky...

After bombing the fake MBE, we followed regional regional director guy's advice, and went to the bar he suggested to go to, with many lovely F.U. friends. Best part - regional regional director guy showed up, and we met him in person! It was kind of like finally meeting Pierre Capretz from the French in Action videos in college...

Pets, Cemeteries, but NOT Pet Cemeteries...

2008-07-01T19:20:00.008-04:00

It is not everyday something you learn at B-Bri is actually on the front page of the NYTimes only hours later...

Helmsley’s Fortune May Go to the Dogs

In addition to $12 million Leona Helmsley left to her pet Maltese, Trouble, she left instructions that a trust valued at $5 billion to $8 billion be used to benefit dogs.

MPQ1 Takes Vacay, Fogets Sunscreen...

2008-07-01T12:59:00.006-04:00

MPQ1 had a really nice and relaxing weekend at the beach house -- he got along really well with his housemates and even got in some quality pool time. He is pretty sad to be back, but at the same time is hoping to start feeling useful at some point this week, since he really has had nothing to do over the past week or so. Here are some pics of his weekend that he asked us to share.

Looking out at the beach, hoping to catch a glimpse of small birds or maybe even a deer.

"New York Essay Testing Volume is so jealers right now."

"Hey Guys! Watch this, watch this!"

Luckily there are no cars on the Island so he didn't have to worry about drinking and driving.

With us, however, the housemates were less forgiving. "The test is in September, right?" "No, actually it's at the end of July," we said. "Ooooooo, yikes" they responded.

Not exactly what we wanted to hear.

Spread Wills, Not Disease.

2008-06-27T15:48:00.002-04:00

This news came into our inbox this morning, just in time for Pride.

According to a new city Health Department study, one in four adults in New York City has genital per stirpes.

Twenty-six percent of citizens who live in the five boroughs are walking around with per stirpes, a full 7 percent above the natural average. Here in NYC, the rate is even higher among FU Law Students, BBri Administrators, and gay men. (If any of you are all three, good luck to you).

Be safe this Pride Weekend, y'all. We are off to the beach. Again. (Failure).

FishWatch Wills Hypo 34a

2008-06-26T13:59:00.006-04:00

During the Wills Lecture, JH writes out a Will for FishWatch on one of 3 of FishWatch's bananas (we get hungry, OK?), stating the following, "I leave JH my pressure cooker." He then forces FitchWatch to initial the Will, whispering forcefully (so as not to disturb people actually paying attention) "just do it, I will leave you my Kitchen Aid mixer." FW resists, but not too forcefully, since he does really want said mixer. Two witnesses sign after JH points out FW's signature to them. See diagram below:

JH then has FishWatch write out a Will for him on a Clean & Clear Oil Absorbing Sheet, saying "I leave Fishwatch my uhm-pire red Kitchen Aid Standing Mixer," signs it, and has two witness sign too. See below.

JH then asks for another Clean & Clear Oil Absorbing Sheet. Reluctant at first, FishWatch notices some shine on JH's nose and acquiesces. JH then secretly writes, "I Hereby Revoke Will #1!!!" and signs it. Below the signature, he writes, "I leave my standing mixer and Fee Simple to J.F." as shown below.

FishWatch then dies of boredom. What result?

At Least Someone Is Making Use of These Things...

2008-06-24T14:35:00.010-04:00

We just spent a few minutes walking around the clinic offices looking for someone to bother, when we came across a brilliant use of the legal size NY Outline book that some of us (mostly us) have yet to crack open. I vaguely remember Regional Regional Director person telling us on Day One that the book won't really be that useful to us, but now I am convinced since it seems very comfortable as a base for random computer screens...

Please let us know if you have found other such uses for these books as reduce/reuse/recycle should be the theme of all of our lives during these green times.

Notice the blank screen. Is that FishWatch we see on the taskbar?

These screens are equipped with the ability to increase the height, but why

use that feature when B-bri books are so much more aesthetically pleasing?
Also, that IS FishWatch on the taskbar! Caught.

Apologies, Beach, No Work, Carbs...The Usual.

2008-06-23T18:45:00.007-04:00

Many, many apologies for the delay, but the “day off” on Thursday really messed us up. What did y’all do with your day off? We inaugurated our pressure cooker and made dal and also packed for our weekend trip to the beach. A few thoughts:

Did anyone go to “Essay Advantage?” We know you did, so spill, and tell us what kind of people attended.

“Studying” at the beach is very, very difficult. As always, we brought every single book we could carry and got through approximately 1-2 pages. We did bring the Yellow testing book this time, which went very well with our new green hand me down Vilebrequin, but is now full of sand in addition to its un-annotated pages.

When you go away for the weekend, you take it as license to eat every single carbohydrate in sight. We are not kidding, on Saturday, we had 2 bagels, a Buttercup bakery cupcake, a donut, and 2-3 of those Levain bakery cookies that are purposefully undercooked on the inside. That was in addition to the 2 shrimp baskets and fried clams. We can only wonder what JH and JF ate on their respective weekend trips, but silence is basically an admission in this matter, so we assume the worst.

In other news, today we went to the afternoon class (um, we actually had things to do this morning), and noticed a few gems. Apparently VH214 Afternoon Session has a “Bar Mustache Club,” in the same vein as November Beard Club, or other such facial hair oriented organizations. We imagine they are growing them out until July 31^st. Three men sit in the back and stroke said mustaches in unison for the entire lecture, and we are seriously thinking of joining them.

Some preppy girls in front of us today apparently know a “John Smith” who imputes “unchastity” to women, and simultaneously suffers from a loathsome disease, as anytime Potty Mouth Torts Prof used John Smith in a hypo in the abovementioned categories, they looked at each other and started laughing uncontrollably.

It’s really defamation to say someone is gay in New York? Um, we are screwed (see Wednesday’s post). Luckily, as we learned, truth is a defense, and we have that handy chart to offer into evidence, which should meet a clear and convincing, or at least preponderance of the evidence standard.

Now This Blog Is Not Interested in Outing People, but Izzy and George was Just Too Much...

2008-06-18T13:37:00.004-04:00

We, like you were bored to tears the last 3 days in K. We, unlike you, however, made a helpful comparison chart in case you were wondering if D.Sokols was really a gay man in disguise. Behold...

Straight	Gay
Mention of “wife”	Fascination with Dr. House and his Houses
Bad Haircut (did you notice the two little squiggly things coming down his forehead?)	Fascination with Desparate Housewives, (including odd joke about being in the shower with Eva Longoria-Parker, the kind we would have made in High School/First two year of college (yes it took us that long, ok?))
Hypo with Tiger Woods (pg 47) (gays don’t care for sports)	Hypo with Derek Jeter (pg 47) (gays know Mariah’s exes)
Use of Xena, Warrior Princess in a Hypo (apparently the straights and lesbians heart her)	Use of Ashlee, Fantasia, and Bjork in Hypos (pp 18, 48)
Constant use of Opie and Goober (did gays even know about the Andy Griffith Show?)	Use of Tori in a Hypo (Clearly Tori Spelling – the gays loved 9-0 and Absolutely Tori) (pg 47)
Mispronunciation of “Beyon-seh”	Said “Beyon-seh” in a really gay way.
Bad shirt and tie combo	Clear fascination with interior design (Martha’s decorating, antique rugs, Van Gough portraits).
Use of Comic Book Characters	Use of Batman and Robin (along with innuendo about them living together – another attempt at the use of gay humor to “pass.”)
	Constant reference to Bravo TV – PR (Heidi, Michael Kors), Top Chef (Tom and Dale, pg 10), and Queer Eye (Thom).

We've Gotta Get These Mothafckin Bar Review Books off this Mothafckin Plane...

2008-06-16T22:06:00.007-04:00

It is amazing how much attention your Multi State Questions Practice Questions Volume 1 (MPQ1) book gets you during domestic travel. This morning we woke up in a southern red state, packed our bag, and set off for the airport, MPQ1 in hand. When we went through security, we got an "oh wow, that's a big book" from the TSA person. Worried she was perceiving it as a threat, we gave the book it's own bin, much like our laptop and sent it through the machine.

As we sat doing practice questions outside the gate (yes we know regional regional director guy told us to practice perfectly, not during transit), we noticed many eyes looking our way, wondering what this big green volume was that was engrossing us so, and both loved and feared all the attention.

As we sat down in 10C, continuing with evidence set 1 (OK that is a lie, we are WAY farther behind than that), we noticed a cute southern boy making his way down the aisle. "Wouldn't it be nice if he were in 10D," we thought to ourselves. Lo(han) and behold, he stood next to us and said "ex-cyoosee me," as we rose to let him in to sit by the window.

"Whatchya stud-yin," he asked, in a sweet southern drawl as his blue eyes peered over the set of questions.

"Oh, we are taking the Bar exam this summer."

"[Redacted Southern State] or New Jersey," he asked (we were flying into Newark, so we forgive him).

"Actually New York," we responded.

"Oh, I hear that is a hard one. I took a law class once, it was fun, but not for me."

"And what do you do?"

"I am an accountant," he said.

"Oh, well at least you are of a learn-ed profession, and get the benefit of the statutes of limitations for any malpractice you may commit." OK, we didn't say that, but were impressed we remembered. We returned to our studying.

Upon landing in Newark, some lawyer looking people on the AirTrain looked over at us and literally pointed and laughed.

An old man at the NJ Transit stop said to us out of the blue, "Good luck on the exam."

At this point, it was getting ridiculous, so we were quite glad to go straight to a place where we blended in just fine - the afternoon session of B-bri.

We knew it was going to be much more chill than the AM when we walked in and Tiger Woods was on the screen playing a round at Torey Pines instead of the draconian cell phone warning (which might be why 2 cell phones went off during the K lecture). But it was confirmed when people walked in late and none of the administrators yelled at them for their Passes. Also, no one minded when we ate the v. intense Indian lunch mom packed for us this morning.

That being said, the lack of crazyness in the room meant we took 0 notes and learned nothing about K. Back to the am grind tomorrow, where we hope the bottled up anxiety and will inspire us to carry MPQ1 out to Beige tomorrow night. See all of you there - just bring the yellow book please so we don't look too matchy matchy.

Bar Studying Is Much Harder (Slash More Fun) After 2/3 of a Bottle of Wine...

2008-06-15T11:24:00.005-04:00

We interrupt this intense studying weekend to report on one of the more bizarre evenings of our lives. We are currently in a southern (red) state where our parents live. Our mom said to us when we landed, “You and I are going to a dinner party at my new friend’s house tonight.” We (of course) said we could do nothing this weekend except study, eat her food, and go to Marshall’s and Ross Dress for Less for deeply discounted clothing and shoes. But she insisted, saying that gays would be there. “Gays? Here?” we responded. She nodded enthusiastically. We gave in.

And gays there were. Two gay couples in fact, about our mom’s age. We were fascinated and thrilled. The hostess was a lovely woman who grew up first in a small Jewish community in Calcutta followed by a small Jewish community in Beverly Hills, who at one point screamed, "Can I help it if I love my gay friends?" On the other hand, she liked to call Obama an anti-Semite, which we gays did NOT like, and we all fought back in between the risotto and churrasco with chimichurri. Also present was a straight (married) interior designer, who kept talking to us about “chicks” and how we must be loving NYC cause there are so many of them there and that we should redesign our apartment in dark tones and clean lines to lure them in. Really?

Everyone said the F word a lot and drank heavily (and asked about the Bar and whether we were taking a class!). Our mom, of course, embarrassingly brought up our a cappella past, which the gays loved. At the end of the night, Gay #3 said that he and Gay #4 had to leave since they had yoga in the morning and Gay #1 said that he and Gay #2 had to make brunch for their friend with whom they did a lot coke in the 70s. (Reminder, this was all in front of our Mom, who is drunk after a 1/2 glass of zinfindel). The hostess pointed out that Obams did a lot of coke. “And so we heart him,” the gays said on the way out.

Yes, yes, we know it is Father’s Day, but this post is basically to give a huge shout out to Mom, who has somehow moved out of the New York area and down south only to become a fag-hag. And so we heart her.

Week 4 (OMG Week 4?) In Review...

2008-06-13T12:27:00.004-04:00

We started blogging again.

We started breaking out again.

We were victimized by the emerging competitive spirit (they did tell us to adopt First Year Mentality, no? Some people took it to heart).

Other Thoughts:

Does anyone else think M.Simms (Evidence, Crim) is kind of hot? Also he has 5 kids. Do you prefer "DILF" or "FILF"? He became less good looking though, when he told us today to stop slacking off starting....now. (Monday maybe?)

His accents, though, need some coaching. Maybe PFran can help. Also, one should never joke about Lindsay Lohan dying (Hypos 43-44, Dead Man's Statute). We are thinking he will be played by Eric Bana in "B-Bri, the Movie Musical."

Leo Lakin (NY Essay Workshop) needs to start drinking with a straw since that slurping pop sound when he sips his water is truly gross. Also, did anyone catch his fingers up in the air whenever he said a number? "6" required two hands, which, thankfully for us meant he was not drinking water for that brief moment. Leo reminded us that this exam is in seven (two hands in the air people!) weeks, which prompted our room to start booing. (Power to the people). He will, as JH pointed out, be played by John McLaughlin of the McLaughlin Group in his first acting role.

On a side note, DK texted us from the beach this morning where he was purportedly "studying" and "doing practice problems." Hate.

We are off to Mom and Dad's (no where near the beach) tomorrow morning to lock ourselves in a room for 48 hours and start learning the law, (with food breaks every 1-2 hours, of course). We will try our best to catch up since we are getting sort of tired of lying to CH every time he asks us if we are up to speed. Wish us luck.

Next Thing You Know People Will Be Stealing Our MPQ1 Book

2008-06-12T12:38:00.006-04:00

We know that only two days ago, we said “we are all in this thing together,” but the past 48 hours have made us reconsider. Somehow a competitive spirit has emerged, and we are not pleased.

Just the other day, we went with some peeps to the gross (slash delicious) Diner near our downtown B-bri location, and ordered the Turkey Burger (Deluxe, natch). When the burgers arrived, we were sad to see that we got the gross ends of the tomato, while RS got nice big central pieces. He eyed his pieces but proceeded to eat his burger without them. When we asked if we could have his, he raised his eyebrow and said “sure,” which we thought was very nice of him. Only when we returned to the Libes did we read on the internets that tomatoes now have salmonella! We can only assume that RS tried to inflict us purposefully with tomato ‘nella (ay ay ay) so we become dreadfully ill and can no longer study for the Bar.

JH has also been caught up in the competitive spirit of the last 48 hours. He has started making flashcards, but has purposefully handwritten them extremely sloppily so as to prevent us from ever being able to read them or make any use of them. Additionally, he has made many muffins over the last few days but has only shared one with us so as to prevent us from being able to pay attention during the lecture because we are so starving all the time. We also now are starting to think that his and JF’s push to get us to blog again is simply an attempt to distract us from the famed "paced program."

We hope these acts of betrayal and backstabbing soon end as we really need all the support, encouragement, and non-tomato ‘nella infested snacks we can get at this point.

BarPimpleWatch2008

2008-06-11T16:32:00.008-04:00

We all knew it would happen. Back during finals when we complained about how our dermatologist could not prevent the "finals pimple," a friend who has been through all this said to us, "Oh, just wait until the Bar – your skin will get extra special." And so begins our continuing segment, BarPimpleWatch2008.

BarPimpleWatch sadly begins at home, since we had our first bout with BarPimples (plural!) last week. Luckily they arrived JUST in time for our 5th Year College Reunion, the point of which, by the way, is to show everyone how much you have improved since college. (Yeah, that didn't happen for some of us, but at least our de-provement was just external and also didn't involve methamphetamines).

Also, our BarPimples provided a nice topic of conversation for some people. Behold:

FW: Hello [Redacted]! Great seeing you.
[Redacted]: OMG great to see you too.

(FW and [Redacted] engage in the "where are you, what are you up to" talking points.)

Enter AR, friend of FW.

[Redacted]: Hey AR!
AR: Hey…youuuuuuuuu (clearly not remembering [Redacted]).
[Redacted]: How are you? Great to see you.
AR: Yeah. (Searching for something to say). Ummmmmmm...wow FW, you have pimples!
FW: Thanks.

Exeunt AR.

JF also texted us last week informing us of her first BarPimple, so it is not unique to downtown locations. She also said she is planning a Note topic examining the rise in Accutane prescriptions and ProActiv orders within a 5 mile radius of B-Bri locations in June and July over the last five years. We wish her well.

And we're back...

2008-06-10T14:20:00.004-04:00

Hello again. Many FW fans have been demanding the return of Fishwatch during this trying, coma inducing time known as "Bar review." (OK only 2 people, JH and JF). Since we are bored to tears anyway, we thought we would give in to the reader(s)’s demands even though other (former) readers (CH) advise that we only study 100% of the time and do practice problems 24/7. So here we are.

Some initial notes about b-bri to get us started:

How many of you laughed out loud and shed a tear of nostalgia when on day one, regional director guy (who will obvs be played by Martin Short in “B-Bri, The Movie Musical”) told us that we could have coffee, but only if it had lids. Personally, we would have advised anyone sitting next to you know who to take note that lids are NOT going to protect you from B-bri breakdowns in late July.

Also, remember on day one when regional director guy said, “no odorous foods?” He looked directly at us (even though we're at a video locale) and said “No Curry in the morning, please.” Blatant and invidious discrimination. (That didn't stop us though. Sorry VH room 206!).

Additionally, he told us to print out a picture of the person we didn’t think would pass, and paste it on our computers for Inspiration. Personally, we have a pic of JFK Jr., wet and shirtless circa 1997 taped up on our computer, but if you want to chose someone ugly AND Bar challenged, you go right ahead.

Paula f-ing Franzese. A-may-zing. Even though she got Kelly and Michelle’s part in Surivor(ship) wrong (technically “wha” not “word,” PFran), we heart her. Water people? Loved it (and totally wrote it down!). Also, JH pointed out that she and Mariah have the same hair extensions. Who will play her? Please make suggestions now.

We also hearted M. Kaufman (played by Wallace Shawn in “B-bri, the Movie Musical”), if only because he actually panted when he said “obedience.”

D. Freer’s comeback gave us horrible flashbacks to April 2006, but somehow the 6 hours over two days and with minimal B&T seemed more manageable than the 8 hour “Welcome Friends from New Jersey” hell we endured first year.

The only good thing we see about B-bri is that it transcends school lines – I have seen many a FU friend in the building the past two weeks (including RishKap who told us that RishKap.com might be in danger, but that is for another post). FU friends have been emailing us, telling us they were so thrilled to join PFran’s facebook group and display their undying love for her all over the internets. Older (but younger looking) and wiser FU friends have been sending us old outlines and study tips (shoutouts to NH, RB, and CH). Really, we are all in this together. So let us go forth, and BarWatch2008.

Brrr....It's Cold in Here, There Must Be Some FishWatch in the Blogosphere...

2006-09-11T17:33:00.000-04:00

Since I missed blogging and you missed having another blog to read as you pretend to pay attention in class, come visit me as I guest blog for the next few months at The FAGAT Guide. It's more "gay" and less "law school," even though "law school" is pretty "gay." Enjoy.

Since there are no 25 y/o's at F.U. looking to buy FishWatch for $10mil....

2006-08-02T17:46:00.000-04:00

I know there has been a lot of talk recently about this Jared Kushner character, the 25 y/o NYU Law student who bought the New York Observer, but I am going to talk some more. As my friend FHC has pointed out, we all hoped, for the sake of our sanity and self-esteem, that this kid would be short and pimply. Sadly, however, he is in fact tall, handsome, loaded, went to Harvard, AND is Jewish. (JF almost died when I told her all this, but really died when I told her that he already has a girlfriend. Sadly for me, the "they're either gay or taken" rule has been once again been right, but in the completely wrong way.)

This all gets me thinking. Why have no tall, handsome, smart, loaded, Jewish 3Ls at F.U. offered $10 mil or so to buy FishWatch? Much like the Observer, this blog is a "great branding opportunity" with "great potential." This blog also puts out "first-rate journalism" and has been regarded "both for its journalistic integrity and irreverent wit." WHERE IS MY JARED!???!!!

With this question in mind, it is with great sadness that I have decided to follow Mr. Kushner to NYU Law School to see if FishWatch has any chance with him, or his checkbook. FishWatch will be taking most of August off (just like Parisians) for vacay, and will re-assess the brand and blog as summer comes to an end...though at this point, it seems too enmeshed in the fabric of F.U. Law to go on. But we shall see.

Thanks to all the peeps who made these past few months of blogging (and past year at F.U.) so great - CoffeeGirl, Dean T, the SBA, Anonymous Commenters, and the crazy, crazy F.U. Law community in general.

All Best,
FW

Adventures in Interning...

2006-08-01T10:01:00.000-04:00

So it's the last week EVER of the 1L internship, and I started off the week yesterday with a bang. Please note the following conversation:

Boss: So who is the owner of this [specific piece of evidence]?
FW: That would be James.
FBI Agent: Is that the defendant's husband?
FW: No, it's her baby daddy.
Boss and Agent: (Blank Stares, no laughter)
FW: Um...he's the father of her child.

Also, I think the boss read the letter that the production company CEO sent to Lindsay Lohan about her lack of professionalism, since I found a very similar one in my inbox this morning:

Fishwatch
c/o Chateau Marmont
8221 Sunset Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90046

Dear FW,

Since the commencement of your internship, you have frequently failed to do any substantial work. Yesterday, you sat in your office in silence (all day). I am now told that you don't plan to do anything substantial today because the legal issues are "too hard." You and your representatives have told us that your various mediocre memoranda have been the result of "inability to log on to Westlaw;" today we are told it is "problems with LexisNexis." We are well aware that your ongoing all day heavy gossip blog reading is the real reason for your so called "network problems." We refuse to accept bogus excuses for your behavior.

The letter goes on, but it is too painful to transcribe. The sad part is they CC'ed Prof BS of the famed externship seminar, and now I am scared I might not get the "Pass" I worked so hard for. I am going to need Dina Lohan on my side today, to help deal with the fallout. If you have her number, please send it to me.

Even with 2 or 3 wars going on in the Middle East and a major power outage in Queens, you can still count on FishWatch to read Sunday Styles....

2006-07-24T18:51:00.000-04:00

I am sure you all caught the article in the Sunday Styles section about arts organizations courting summer associates to start the ball rolling on arts patronage. My favorite comment was by far the following:

Its another thing to keep summer associates happy to defray the reality of how miserable their lives are going to be, said Cameron Stracher, a professor at New York Law School and author of Double Billing: A Young Lawyers Tale of Greed, Sex, Lies, and the Pursuit of a Swivel Chair (William Morrow, 1998). He suspects most of their patronage of the arts will consist of writing checks. Its like the sublimation of their true desires, he said.

I laughed at first, really hard...but then thought of that coffee date I had with my voice teacher about a week before my F.U. deposit was due. "Don't do it," she said. "You should be auditioning. Musicals are more fun than Law School. Musicals are like summer camp. Law School...well...isn't."

I disagree. Law School is like summer camp, only it's that CTY camp my parents tried to get me to go to. Yes, you know that camp...the one for which the Indian and Korean kids in your 8th grade class took the SATs to get in.

If only I had this thing during Contracts Class...

2006-07-20T07:53:00.000-04:00

So I am now in possession of a crystal gavel. The best parts are (a) that I now own a crystal gavel, and (b) I own something that says "Best Orarlist" on it. Note that it does not say "Oralist," rather "Orarlist." I thought maybe I had been spelling and pronouncing it wrong all this time, but I googled it, and the "did you mean...oralist" came up, and the "did you mean..." on google is never wrong. Regardless, I fully plan to bring it out to bars this weekend, and to class in the fall and bang it on the desk when I disagree with Prof Gords or Gents, but only after I bedazzle it with Swarovski Crystals for added effect.

"Orarlists" are better than "Oralists" in bed.

But by far the best part of last night was my interaction with the Honorable Judge P at the post Moo Court Final dinner, with whom I had the following conversation:

FW: Respectfully your honor, I have heard a rumor that you enjoy a certain blog about [F. U. Law].
Judge P: Yes, I do! It's a very cute blog.
FW: Well it's actually my blog, and I am really glad to know someone on the federal bench is enjoying it.
Judge P: Loved the Coffee Throwing.

Next on the list is getting members of Congress to read this thing, so contact the FW 2006 Lobbying Committee with ideas and strategies.

Don't worry, I ran over Lizzie Grubman at Star Room...

2006-07-18T10:13:00.000-04:00

Let's just recap a little conversation I had on Friday afternoon around 4pm:

Boss: FW, why don't you come with me to court for these arraignments and maybe you can stand up on one of them. It is a great opportunity for an intern and you will benefit greatly from the experience.
FW: Um...that sounds great. But I am heading to catch a train to East Hampton with my friends. Do you know how long the ticket lines are on Friday afternoons? Have to get there early. Smell you later!

OK, OK, it didn't exactly go down like that, but pretty close. Basically the boss now shakes her head in dismay whenever we make eye contact.

I managed to get my list of 35 together yesterday morning, but found that when people asked me if such and such a firm is on my list, that I have no freaking clue. I am pretty sure that for 25-35 I just went based on if the date of their interview was on my friend's birthday or not.

Finally, I have somehow found myself in the Moo Court semifinals, and really don't know what to say. I guess my high school masterdebator skills have somehow resurfaced after a long hiatus, and that I have added the requisite "punch and pizazz" that my legal writing prof told me I needed in my writing and speaking. Obvi, the boss was shocked when I told her.

Spotlight on Alternative Journals...

2006-07-12T15:26:00.000-04:00

In addition to the FishWatch Law Journal, there are several others around that you may not have heard about. Here are some highlights:

KV writes in that, "I've heard back from the Security Guard Journal. My first note is entitled "How to keep F.U. students out of the atrium when we host events and pretend that they don't exist." Congrats KV! I hear that the first issue this year will also include an empirical study on how many times the guards actually look up to check your ID, and its effect on the City's crime rates.

Another student writes in that she was given an offer from the Lowenstein Cafeteria Journal, which this year will feature notes about improving credit card machine approval time, the long term effects of Crystal Light, the pros and cons of dating an F.U. Undergrad, interviews with Chef Ian and Cashier Luz, and finally, the microeconomic effect on demand of LoCaf items when free cupcakes are introduced into the market.

Finally, a new journal getting off the ground this year is Alan's Law Journal. I spoke with Faculty Advisor Alan himself, and suggested inquiries into why the Balsamic vinaigrette tastes like BBQ sauce, why the price of a Naked Juice is so high, and what exactly the F.U. discount is, cause no one ever seems to get it.

These journals, however, did not fare as well as the others who get to stay in the main Law building, and thus have to deal with office space at West 60th Street. Regardless, I think we can look forward to a great year of insightful legal scholarship. Congrats to all.

Why you should never move to Brooklyn...

2006-07-11T22:42:00.000-04:00

This afternoon at Lassen & Hennigs on Montague Street in Downtown Brooklyn, I was approached by an elderly woman who clearly spent too much time in the sun, with whom I had the following conversation:

Woman: Excuse me, are you from India?
FW: [thinking she would offer something poignant regarding the horrible bombings] Um...I am from Long Island. But I am Indian, yes.
Woman: It's just that I have a house in India, and whenever I see someone from India I just miss it soooo much.
FW: (blank stare). Huh.

In other news, Round II of Moo Court is dunzo, and I will admit that during the post argument critique, I was rebuked for my "off podium conduct." Confused at first, they went on to say that when other peeps were arguing, I twirled my pen, shuffled papers, wrote dirty, dirty notes to my partner, and made faces when the other team said something wrong. I wanted to tell them that sitting in an F.U. Law classroom without IM and my blog to keep me constantly occupied is very, very difficult, and what could they expect of me?

Finally, there is an intern in my office who started a pretty funny intern newsletter. Well it's all the rage at the office, and I must say I am feeling a little bit salty that even my boss is calling him the "hilarious intern." Since I can't say I am up for the "brilliant intern" label, the "hard- working intern" label, the "on-time intern" label, or, believe it or not, even the "best-looking intern" label, I certainly thought I had a shot at the "hilarious" one. But now I am just the intern who reminds people who have second homes in India of their property. Sad.

I am SOOOO sorry you guys!!! FishWatch took the weekend off, calls with offers to join the FishWatch Law Journal coming later today...

2006-07-10T10:11:00.000-04:00

People, try not to accept any journal offers you may have received over the weekend, and if no offers came a' callin...don't despair. The F.U. FishWatch Law Journal Volume I is going to be extending offers later today, with an open bar event on S7 of the libes, red carpet starting at 11pm.

Volume I Issue 1 is going to be great - co-writing and research editor JF will be doing a note called "Moo Court: Who wore it best," pitting all you girls in the black skirt suits against each other. Also included will be an expose on the Admin's attempts to prevent future coffee attacks, and "OCI: Tales from a Student Greeter."

In other news, I found my F.U. ID, thank g*d, just in time for externship seminar-o-fun and Moo Court Round 2 (yes, all that fun packed into one evening). Note that I woke up today at 4:30am on a couch in North Carolina.

If you thought any of the new F.U. engagements were same sex couples, then THINK AGAIN...

2006-07-07T10:18:00.000-04:00

So as you probably heard by now, the New York Court of Appeals denied the gays the right to marry. The rather weak arguments are ones we've heard before: "Leave it to the legislature!" "It's better for the children!" "No tradition of gay marriage!" "No long history of discrimination!" "No one wants to see a grown man in Vera Wang!" Chief Judge Kaye's dissent is just the right opinion on this matter - y'all should read it and spread the gospel. Click Here for the docs.

The big question now is what do I do with the "Marriage is Gay" t-shirt I spent 20$ on?

In other news, Round One of Moo Court Oral Args is over, and the highlight was when my opponent complimented the lovely knots on my new Thomas Pink french cuff shirt (a lovely b-day gift from lovely friends), to which I responded, "You have to dress for the holding you want." Maybe the gays before the Court of Appeals forgot that?

For those of you who know what I look like, have you seen my F.U. ID???

2006-07-05T18:37:00.000-04:00

So I arrived at F.U. today, eager to articulate my thoughts on exigent circumstances (slash, I have NO thoughts on the issue), and got my wallet out of my pocket to flash my glamour shot to the security guard, only to find that my ID is missing! To think that there is someone making faded diagonal copies on the 1986 copy machine with my funds is just killing me. Also, now I can't get a 10% discount at the Starbucks on 9th, and had to coax the "guard" at the libes door to let me in. I had to refrain from saying to her "Do you even GO here?" and "Do you even KNOW who I am?" but was able to resist the urges.

So if any of you see my ID anywhere, please don't sell in on ebay.

Anyway, I just ran into former Section 5 Rep DK, and congratulated him as one of the recently engaged F.U. students. An artist's rendering of the ring:

Well well well, DK, maybe if you spent less on engagement rings and more on the first edition Lady Duff Gordon biography for Prof H.B. from the whole section, we would not be in the position we are in today. Regardless, Mazel Tov.

In other love lives news, FishWatch co-writing and research editor ER also recently got engaged. We hope the giant rock on her finger doesn't interrupt the laborious task of editing reader comments. Congrats ER!

Journals to stay on (Air Quotes) "Garden Level;" Hot German LLMs to be deported...

2006-06-30T15:39:00.000-04:00

It appears as if JournalMoveAcrossTheStreetGate2006 has been s*ttled. (After the Prof Marts final on which 2/4 questions were on s*ttlem*nts, I can't bear to spell out the word in full ever again, fyi). One journal sent an email to its members saying:

Deans M and S informed us yesterday afternoon that our Journal office will not be moved to the 33 West 60th building. Law Review agreed to give up their staff office in exchange for the LLM conference room; with that, the administration believes it will have enough space to accommodate its needs for the 2006-2007 year.

It must be nice for them to stay on the "Garden Level." The flora and fauna is just amazing this time of year. The email went on:

We are fairly confident that the volume of impassioned and articulate e-mails, phone calls, and letters from staff, editors, and alumni are largely responsible for affecting the administration's decision-making and for helping them to understand the very real consequences of such a move on the ULJ, ILJ, and Law Review.

It's just like Scalia said in Lawrence. First you allow the admin to move the Journals across the street, next thing you know we have polygamists running around and 1Ls marrying sheep. Good thing the alums let the Dean know that.

Speaking of polygamy, engagement fever has hit Section 5. There apparently have been four rocks exchanged this summer so far, and it's not even July. FishWatch's "Love Lives" section will have all the details after the holiday, including a special interview with jeweler Neil Lane on what rings are hot at F.U. right now.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend y'all! For me, freedom means watching hours and hours of TV and movies, including Superman, Strangers With Candy, Devil Wears Prada, World Cup, and Wimbledon (yes, I too can watch sports, especially if they involve people who look like this).

Moo Court Moo-tasticness, APPROXIMATE, ESTIMATED, WE THINK IT'S RIGHT Class Standings

2006-06-29T12:48:00.000-04:00

So after putting together a pretty mediocre brief, my partner and I were not too excited to pick up our opponents' brief in the event that it kicked ass. That being said, we still expected said opponents' brief to be there.

However, when my partner arrived at F.U. yesterday morning to get the brief from the box, it was decidedly not among the what I am sure are brilliant and insightful legal arguments. He talked to the moo court peeps and they said to come back later (cause we LOVE going to F.U. Law as often as we can in summer, apparently). He goes back in the afternoon, and...nada. He then sends the editors a snarky e-mail claiming grave injustice, and leaves the country (cause the July 4th fireworks are just TO DIE FOR in Amsterdam), and I get an email from the Moo Court peeps saying I should come in the evening and it would be there. I get home last night, ready to order take out and watch "So You Think You Can Dance," but instead put on my running shorts and shoes, and jog across the park to good old F.U. I show up to the Moo Court office, sweat glistening and hair tussled (and wheezing since I forgot to take my inhaler and my Claritin), and find that the BRIEF IS NOT IN THERE (I looked twice!). The girl in the office says, "Oh yeah, just email the editors, I guess." OK. (Cause it's not like everyone made 8 copies or anything).

So I send another snarky email to the Moo Court peeps, and then email the actual opponents telling them of our trials and tribulations, and asking them to just email us a copy so I don't have to do anymore exercise, g*d forbid. I really hope we get it soon, cause a four day Independence Day weekend without a brief to read is just UN-American.

Also, the dreaded (admit it, you called them to see when they were coming out) class standings email came yesterday:

Dear Members of the Classes of 2007, 2008 and 2009,

The Registrars [sic] Office has just released the following information regarding approximate or estimated class standings for the 2005-2006 academic year. [F.U. Law] does not have official class standings, therefore the term "approximate"or "estimated" must always be used in conjunction with these figures if you reference them on your resume.

By saying F.U. "does not having official class standings," do they mean what my High School meant when they said they didn't officially rank us? Meaning that they really did rank, they just didn't tell you unless you kissed up to the guidance counselor and asked him? I am guessing that's the case, since we heard a rumor the other day that a certain firm asks Registrar Ken for the top 12 kids in the class and sends them an email inviting them to submit a resume...and then sends them a letter saying "we aren't going to hire you, why did you bother?"

Also, why are these only "approximate" and "estimated" standings? Is it like the Nielsen ratings? Do they only look at one section as a sample and then make the "approximations" and "estimates" based on that? I really hope they didn't use Section 5, cause we are one crazy sample population if I ever saw one.

Maybe F.U. Law should apply for some new Gates Foundation money to fix its network...because the children are suffering...

2006-06-28T10:27:00.000-04:00

I rarely check my F.U. inbox because there are just so many times you can be reminded about an updated list of on-campus interviewers who aren't going to hire you.

But below are some selected emails from our F.U. inboxes that are surprisingly not from Career Planning. Anyone else notice a trend here? If you ask me, it looks as if YSummer2K6FU is coming, just as Nostradamus predicted. I even read somewhere that he once predicted that F.U. Law's "Simplicity" will forget to upload resumes in the fall of the 6th year after two millenia. OMG THAT'S THIS YEAR!!!

Planned University Systems Outage

6/27/06 4:56 PM

GroupWise Email Outage Yesterday

6/26/06 10:17 AM

Fwd: June 22, 2006 Network Outage

6/22/06 4:19 PM

June 22, 2006 Network Outage

6/22/06 4:03 PM

Internet Outage Notification

6/22/06 11:33 AM

Service Interruptions - Summer 2006

6/21/06 10:13 AM

CIMS Maintenance - Monday June 12 @10am

6/8/06 9:00 AM

Reminder - Network Maintenance - Friday, June 2nd

6/2/06 10:01 AM

Last Night = Best Night Ever.

2006-06-23T10:01:00.000-04:00

So last night my (former) roommate (*tear) and I had the following exchange over IM while I was at work. (Yes I IM at work).

[redacted]: What time shall we meet for dinner?
FishWatch: How about 9:00 in the East Village?
[redacted]: Ok.
[redacted]: Or we could go hear Christina Aguilera perform at a party.
FishWatch: Um...Let me think about that.

Christina was amazing. She looked hawt and sang her little heart out. For a full recap click here.

The best part of the evening was not when X-tina saw me singing along to Beautiful and winked at me, (i died), but rather, when I met TIM GUNN and told him how excited I was about Season 3!! He told me he would talk to the Moo Court peeps and make sure I was free that night. Thanks Tim! Carry On!

Debate Over Journal Offices Move Continues To Spark Long, Oppressive Emails On Both Sides...Even Those Bored To Tears at Work Cannot Bear To Finish...

2006-06-22T15:17:00.000-04:00

The below e-mail made it into our inbox a few days ago, but it basically took me until today to finish reading it. That's how long it is. It's a response from Dean T to a student who complained about the impending move of the Journal Offices to West 60th Street. The situation may have been resolved by now, but FishWatch has stopped providing up to the minute news service on all things F.U. Law since readership is now only me, CH, and my 3 non-law school friends who pretend to think this blog is funny.

Reading the e-mail over, I have realized that I am swayed by anything really, and have very few convictions. Hand me a DOJ memo on Wiretapping and I am SOLD. Hand me an ACLU one against, and I am mad as hell. Hand me an US Weekly about how sad Jen is, I put on my "Team Aniston" shirt and pay 10 bucks to see "Rumor Has It." Put Angie on Anderson Cooper and "Team Jolie" comes out of the laundry basket and I adopt an orphan with no arms.

So, not that I really cared before, but now Dean T has convinced me that moving the Journals is best. Cause if Stanford and Harvard do it this way, who are we to question such wisdom?

Here is the email in full:

Dear [Redacted],

I appreciate receiving your views about the proposed move of the Law Review, the ILJ, and the ULJ to West 60th Street. I am, at this point, still thinking through the question whether the journals will be moved, but I am writing to let you know why the move is under serious consideration.

As anyone who knows [F.U.] Law School recognizes, we face serious space difficulties. Other top schools have at least twice as much space per student as we do. We need a new building and the planning for one is actively underway. My hope is that we will have a new law school building in the near future and that all components of the school will then be housed in one building.

In the meantime, we must make temporary arrangements. Our space has become so inadequate that we cannot make obvious and needed improvements to current programs and cannot find space for new ones. Generous alumni have given us the funding to expand our Crowley Program in International Human Rights and to create the John Feerick Center for Law and Social Justice. The Crowley expansion will give students the opportunity to engage in a clinic in human rights law, learning under experts in the area. The Feerick Center will give students the opportunity to work under Dean Feerick's invaluable mentorship on some of the most vexing problems affecting our larger society -- school financing and family homelessness among them. We also need space for other programs. As just one example, we have hired a new Assistant Dean to run and expand our international and LL.M. programs. Put simply, our need for space is not theoretical; these programs need space in which to begin operation in the Fall.

This is why the availability of additional space at 33 West 60th comes as welcome relief. As you know, 33 West 60th has housed major law school programs for years. A number of faculty members have offices there. Our Clinic Program occupies the third floor. Dean Feerick and the Crowley Program are both on the second floor. However, we have used up every scrap of space available to us there. We need space for additional faculty, the Clinic Program is bursting at the seams and the Crowley and Feerick Programs are about to launch. The additional space on the 9th floor at 33 West 60th will allow us to address each of these issues.

The needs of the Feerick and Crowley Programs require that we move the Admissions and Financial Aid Offices from the 2nd floor at 33 West 60th. As we go through the inconvenience of moving these offices, we have the opportunity to create an Enrollment Services unit, consisting of the Registrar's Office, the Admissions Office and Financial Aid. Combining these operations will improve efficiency. Each of these offices works on a different time cycle. Thus, the Registrar's Office is extraordinarily busy at times of the year when the Admissions Office and Financial Aid are not as busy. By bringing these offices together and by cross-training staff, we would be able to use our resources to address each office's crunch times more effectively. Our objective here would be simple: we would seek to meet the long-standing, and oft-repeated, request of students and student leaders for better service in these areas.

We have, of course, considered housing the new Enrollment Services Office in the new space at 33 West 60th. Such a plan has significant costs. It would require all 1400 of our students, including evening students with simple questions, to leave the main building and go over to West 60th Street to seek information from the Registrar. It would also make some of the operations of the Registrar's Office -- such as the administration of exams and the provision of direct services to students and faculty -- much more difficult. On the other hand, bringing the Enrollment Services Office into the main building would have significant benefits. All key student services would then be available to students on the garden level. Administrative offices that need to coordinate closely would be located together. For example, the Financial Aid and Registrar's Office need to work closely with the Office of the Dean of Students on the entry of incoming classes, the graduation of outgoing classes and the provision of services to students. That work could be done much more effectively if the offices were near one another. Finally, there are obvious benefits to the school in having the Admissions Office in the main building. That key office originally was moved to the 33 West 60th building with great reluctance and at great cost. Bringing it back into the main building would help us have a more effective way of recruiting potential students and serving admitted students.

This brings us to the point where we consider housing Enrollment Services in the space now occupied by the three journals in the main law school building, and it is against this context that I ask you to view the proposal to move the journals. We are forced to make decisions about space that are less than perfect, but such decisions must be made.

I recognize the benefits of having the journals in the main building. The journals are a hub of student life and have created vibrant communities on the garden level. The creation of community is one of our core values, and I take very seriously anything that might weaken the sense of community. I know that moves are disruptive and that there are short term costs that must be accounted for when considering them. Our experience with 33 West 60th Street shows that it is fully possible to foster community in that building. The Clinic, which is housed on the second floor, is one of the programs that is used most intensively by large numbers of students. It has thrived at West 60th and has thrived to a far greater extent than would have been possible if it had clung to its inadequate space in the main building. Our Crowley and Feerick Programs have similarly thrived there and are about to expand. 33 West 60th Street is part of the law school and is also a hub of student life. Housing the journals there would make that space even more vibrant.

Other urban law schools - ones with far more space than we have - have already decided that journals can be housed in buildings that do not contain the main classrooms. This is the case at the other leading schools in Manhattan, where the law reviews at Columbia and NYU are not in the main building. The Harvard Law Review and the George Washington Law Review are not in the main classroom building either. Even Stanford - which is not an urban campus - is moving one of its journals out of the classroom building.

The experience at other schools makes clear that journals do not need to be in main classroom buildings to thrive. They can be located nearby in other law school space without compromising the quality of their product. Under the plan I am considering, the journals would receive more space and more varied types of space at 33 West 60th Street than they currently have. The space itself is of a higher quality than the journals now have.

We are still working on the question of what hours the West 60th Street building will be open, but the move will only occur if an appropriate arrangement on hours can be set up. The journals are one of the great strengths of the law school, and I would not move them if the move would weaken that strength.

I note that as a community, we have managed to live remarkably well together in seriously inadequate space. I am keenly aware of the relationship between space and community. Our space needs are such that I fear our ability to foster community may be weakened if our activities become much more compressed. For my part, over the past year, I have asked that we scour the space in the Law School to find ways to give our student community a little breathing space. As a result, when students return to school in the Fall, they will find couches and comfortable chairs that will be available for them in the Atrium during times that the space is not being used for events. We will have benches spread throughout the school to give students a place to sit between classes. We will have more couches and chairs available in the cafeteria. We are also undertaking construction to increase classroom space and have gone so far as to remove an old vault from the garden level to create a small room that will give us space for meetings.

The question about 33 West 60th at this point is what makes sense for the community as a whole, weighing costs against benefits. I have asked those of you who will be affected by this proposal to join me in figuring out how to make it work best if it is adopted. I have made similar requests of those who would be affected by other proposals we have been developing and considering. I am grateful to those of you who have made suggestions that would improve a move for the journals. We have already incorporated some of the suggestions into our planning. Such input helps a great deal because it allows me to identify accurately the true institutional costs of adopting each of the alternatives before me. I am committed to making whatever move does come to pass as easy as possible. If we implement the move of the journals, we will work closely with editors and staff to ensure that their work is disrupted as little as humanly possible.

Again, I appreciate and invite your views.

Sincerely,
Dean [T]

This is like on Square One when one little mistake led to SERIOUS bad stuff happening....

2006-06-21T00:09:00.000-04:00

So the conflict notification deadline was Monday at 8:00PM for Moo Court oral argument rounds, and I just realized that I made a serious omission that is going to have massive repercussions for everyone involved:

I FORGOT TO LIST JULY 12th AS A CONFLICT AND IT IS THE PREMIER OF PROJECT RUNWAY!!!!! If I get scheduled to debate some nerd-tastic topic (that I voluntarily signed up to do, keep in mind) on the most anticipated night of the summer, I will be more angry than Kara after a sizzler, if you know what I mean.

Moo Court G*ds, if you are reading this slowly dying blog...please, please don't schedule me on July 12th for round two of Dorkitude 2006.

But if I do get scheduled that day, rest assure my oral arguments will be on the differing standards of review employed by Nina Garcia, Fashion Director Elle Magazine, and Michael Kors, Designer, American Jet Set Fashion, and which standard the Court should adopt to settle the jurisprudence on this matter once and for all.

Externship Seminar continues to insult the intelligence of us and everyone around us...

2006-06-16T11:08:00.000-04:00

Today at 10:43 I realized that my Externship Seminar Class 2 Writing Assignments were due at noon, which meant I had to put aside actual work I was doing FOR my externship, to write ABOUT my externship. Very meta I think. Or ironic. I don't know. Anyway, first I had to answer the following questions on "Supervision:"

Consider an assignment that you received from your fieldwork supervisor. (1) What were you told about it? (2) What were to not told initially but discovered later that you needed to know? (3) What should you have asked that you didn't? (4) Did things come up that couldn't be anticipated? (5) How did you handle unanticipated questions?

My answer:

(1) I was told to write a memo and do it fast. (2) That if I found out I had to answer silly questions for a silly class, I should do the memo instead. (3) I should have asked if my supervisor could write me a note getting me out of externship seminar class on Monday. (4) Yes. See above 1-5. (5) By writing obnoxious answers to them on my blog.

Also, we have to discuss an ethical dilemma discussion we were supposed to have with our supervisor. Since my supervisor is out all morning, I think I am going to have to write about the ethical dilemma of making up the ethical dilemma discussion. Very meta. Or ironic. I don't know.

Getting to 35: Liveblogging this shiznit...

2006-06-12T20:06:00.000-04:00

For those of you not in the know, this meeting is about how to best pick the 35 firms you have to pick for early interview week this August. As we heard from our friends who attended last night, it is a COMPLETE waste of time, but FishWatch will nevertheless be liveblogging throughout, since none of you f*ckers did yesterday.

7:55 - It's like world cup soccer outside, the crowd is getting restless.

8:06 - He just used "CPC" and "useful" in the same sentence. This meeting has already lost credibility.

8:07 - Start ranking as soon as you get your grades! And if your grades suck? DON'T BOTHER!

8:07 - There are no safeties and reaches, go in your group. Someone asked what this meant, I really don't think he answered it, but I think he thinks he did. In language you can understand: "Harvard" ain't going to happen. Also, as Jeri Blank once said, "Go with what you know."

8:08 - Category I firms are for the top 10%. If you are in the top 11%, you are not in the top 10%. Huh. Category II firms are for the top 1/3 of the class. And category III firms are for the top 1/2 of the class. And if you are in the bottom 1/2? Well then you get the thanks of everyone IN the top 1/2 for just existing and taking up the necessary space.

8:10 - Greeter program - put on a happy face, walk the attorney to the interview room, and BEG for an interview. They may tell you to come back for an interview. More likely they will send you to get a diet coke and a panini.

8:13 - Don't overbid: "Like don't do 10, 10 and 15, cause you can only do 35." Again, more credibility lost.

8:16 - SKADDEN GOT THE BOOT!!!! They are Category 2! Note this is only 3 shy of Hurricane Katrina.

8:22 - This thing is dunzo. On all of our minds is, why couldn't they have just added a category column on the spreadsheet they sent us, since that is all they said?

What exactly was the point of the writing competition if no one is going to SEE you in the Law Review office eating popcorn and talking shit?

2006-06-09T09:41:00.000-04:00

A source sent us some shocking news this morning in a rather long email. I have briefed it for you below.

Facts: The administration wants to move the ULJ, ILJ, and Law Review offices to a new space on the 9th floor of 33 West 60th Street and plans to fill their current offices with new offices for the Registrar, Student Affairs, and Career Services.

Holding: The administration is going to move the ULJ, ILJ, and Law Review offices to a new space on the 9th floor of 33 West 60th Street and plans to fill their current offices with new offices for the Registrar, Student Affairs, and Career Services.

Rationale: The administration claims that they need the Registrar, Student Affairs, and Careers Services to occupy a central physical location to have increased access to students. They also claim that these offices need to communicate with one another.

I am a little confused. Aren't the current Career Services offices and Student Affairs Office 15 feet away from the journal offices right now? So they are going to move them 15 feet down the hall? And has anyone figured out what exactly Student Affairs does? They realize we still can't access the facebook from off-campus, and that no one has any time for movies, right? Also, can't these offices just communicate by email? Or a blog? Or walking 15 feet down the hall? Also, isn't this whole building going to get knocked down in like 2 years, so why waste people's time?

Most importantly, how are we going to impress the new hot 1Ls if they don't see us going in and out of the Law Review office all day long, and they can't see us sitting in there pretending to review the law? This, I think, should be a central argument in the Journals' brief, and will be the cornerstone of FishWatch's amicus brief that will be filed later today.

As one ULJ editor has stated in an e-mail to members, "[t]he space at 33 West 60th is not horrible, but is also not great." Powerful words that should inspire us all to take action against this travesty.

I guess I just can't get away from this place...

2006-06-05T19:47:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not, I am writing from the Caf at F.U. School of Law! I just emerged from the two hour "externship seminar" I have to take to get credit for my internship, which I think many of you are also taking, so we should share in the misery. This may be the biggest bunch of fluff I have ever witnessed. I think the most telling phrases of the course so far have been "fill out your 'Learning Agenda' that will help you articulate your goals for the summer" and "We are going to be sharing our experiences a lot."

My goals were as follows:

1. Impress my fellow interns and co-workers with my wit, charm, and good looks.
2. Impress my fellow interns and co-workers with my sense of style (a.k.a. dress for the verdict I want).
3. Keep up with the blog at all costs.
4. Find a husband who is about ready to transition to the private sector.

I had to change them though once I realized we had to get our supervisors to sign them and hand them in. Then they became the standard, "Improve my _________ skills."

Prof S also made us all explain why we decided to come to law school, and I swear what we said was the exact opposite of what was being said as little as two weeks ago. I even found myself saying "I had a great time this year," and "I look forward to learning more about the law." It must be the new red umbrellas on the "patio" outside the caf that make this place feel more like a Caribbean resort and less like a public high school.

In other news, I received an ID today, so I did numerous shots of espresso just to celebrate, and felt free to use the bathroom as many times as I needed.

I may need to borrow David Blaine's catheter pretty soon...

2006-06-02T16:10:00.000-04:00

So I have been at work for a week now, and still don't have an ID Card somehow (clearly, I am not working for the private sector). Luckily the security guard downstairs is from my hometown, so he lets me in, but when I get to my floor, I have to wait by the "DON'T LET ANYONE WITHOUT ID IN" sign for someone to come out or go in and explain to them that I am the intern sans ID, at which point they look at me, look at the sign, then look at me again. I give them my best smile, and so far, it has worked all but one time.

The worst part about this situation is that the bathroom is back outside the FishWatch proof door. This means I have to borrow an ID from someone, telling them that I need to go the bathroom, which is awkward, because then they will know for how long I am in the bathroom. Also, I can tell in eyes of the women on the floor that they simply do not want their IDs going into the men's room. Alternatively, I have lied and said I am going out to get a snack, but then the ID holder asks for something, so then I actually have to go out and get a snack at a time when I am trying to get my body back in shape in case someone invites me out to the Hamptons and/or his bedroom.

The solution has been to minimize my exits and entrances. I have cut out all caffeinated beverages (which means no props around when I tell the icedcoffeemeltdown story), and luckily the water cooler on the floor is for "Paying Water Club Members Only" (according to the sign), so I can't even hydrate at all. I leave only for lunch (going to the bathroom on the way out) and then make an intern from a different floor come and let me in after lunch so I don't have to bother my boss. Yesterday, one intern (you know who you are KB) refused to come up and let me in, so I had to call the boss who is just getting tired of this whole situation.

You would think the simple answer would be to just get an ID, but I have tried people, I really have, and it doesn't appear that I will be getting one anytime soon.

The bigger issue is that I accidentally drank some water at lunch and now I have to pee. Does this mean I have to leave for the day?

Get psyched, get superpsyched, get psyched, get superpsyched, get P-S, P-S-Y, P-S-Y-C-H-E-D, get psyched, hey hey, get psyched!

2006-06-01T17:17:00.000-04:00

Some random musings at the end of the workday...

It is t-minus 2 hours and 15min til the Moo Court meeting begins, and I know you all are just ITCHIN' to get your hands on the Mulligan Competition materials. I, for one, cannot say "Mulligan" unless it's in a thick Irish accent with a Guinness in hand. Fitting, since that is how I anticipate working on this thing -- with one hand trying to get my broken laptop to work, and the other setting up the Irish car bombs.

Does anyone else feel like they have been living hard the past month or so? It's kind of like being a rock star without the rock, or the star, or the drugs, or the sex. I mean, we finish finals, have to do this writing comp thing, then move out of our apts, then start work, and now write briefs for this thing? I don't really know why I opt to do all of these voluntary things, but part of me feels that the "if everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you?" message was lost on me those many years ago.

Lastly, I was sitting in the back of a courtroom today when a very good looking girl up near the judge looked my way and stared at me for a minute or so. I couldn't help but think that I had somehow found some hetero mojo, and that women might just think I am a metrosexual or something, and therefore men would find me hotter since they might think I was straight. Then the judge introduced her as his summer intern and I realized we went to high school together, so in reality, she was just asking herself, "was he really that gay in high school?" Well, I don't think so, but to tell you the truth, around Lindsay Lohan I queened it up, since I knew making her my hag was the best option for getting to the top. Clearly, that plan worked.

FishWatch Doppleganger still lurks...or am I his doppleganger? Probably the latter...

2006-05-31T15:39:00.000-04:00

So my doppleganger is still out there, and up to his old tricks. In case you don't know what I am talking about, I'll give you a little background:

So my doppleganger is really only my doppleganger because he is also brown and has the same name as me (though he spells it FishWaatch), and the same first two letters of my last name.* We were on the same page of the freshman facebook in college, and he quickly established himself as the smart activist with a conscience, while I opted for the role of a cappella nerd who got by on grade inflation. Sometimes people would come up to me and say, "FishWa[a]tch, thank you so much for the email on child laborers in Ecuador. It really got me thinking about how I can get involved." I would always smile awkwardly and say "Singing group concert this Friday!" at which point most people would realize their mistake and run away before I tried to sell them a ticket.

Over the course of 4 years I would get the occasional voicemail and email asking "how can I get help save the sweatshop workers of Honduras," and "tell me more about your work curbing the spread of AIDS among prison populations worldwide."

During junior year many people congratulated me on getting the Truman scholarship and Senior year a lot of people were so happy that I got a Marshall fellowship. Except that I didn't. You guessed it, FishWaatch did.

On Class Day when the smart people got big prizes for being so smart, Dean B said: "And the winner of the [another rich person's endowment] prize, with 42 credits, 41 grades of A and 1 A-, a leader in fighting for social justice, Fishwa/atch...," at which point everyone in my area looked over at me bursting with pride, shocked that I had managed to get such good grades and fight for social justice while at the same time choreographing the big dance number for my spring a cappella jam. I even think I saw my parents look over in shock and start calling the other Indian parents on Long Island to start the bragging process. (I can safely say they did NOT do that after the big dance number).

Obviously, I knew what was coming next. He would start saying the real FishWaatch's last name, and at the beginning, everyone would STILL think it was me, but by the third letter, they would realize their mistake, and smiles would turn into looks of confusion. "There were two FishWa/atch's here?" they would all think to themselves. (Though I can't exactly complain about people thinking all brown people are the same, I mean how do you think I drank from ages 16-21?).

After college, I thought my feelings of inadequacy would fade, but when I would go back to school for football games (I just tailgated people, don't worry), someone would inevitably ask me how my time at Oxford on the Marshall fellowship was (by this point, I would just say things like "Amazing!" or "The Bestest!"). And when FishWaatch started at Harvard Law School, people would ask me how Harvard was going, and I would say, "No no, I go to F.U. Law," and they would say "OMG, do you have to take Metro North?"

Which brings me to day 1 of my internship, where I introduced myself to a fellow intern, an HLS 1L, who said, "Oh, I saw the email list and thought the FishWaatch from my class was working here, I was so excited, but I guess it's not him." The sad part is I had no singing group concert to invite her too. Except that if I did, it would be more sad.

So people, the take away here is that you can never out-do or out-run your doppleganger, so don't even try. I think the best bet is to just be as mediocre as possible and hope he takes pity on you one day and sets you up with someone at HLS who plans to make a lot of money, and, of course, loves a cappella.

*Also, I am not sure doppleganger is the right word to use when you are friends with the person, as I am with FishWaatch, but it's the best I can do.

Still no computer, still no sanity...

2006-05-30T21:29:00.000-04:00

I am sorry again for being MIA, but I can't imagine anyone was reading this over the last few days, considering the only time you people read it is when you are bored out of your mind studying or writing something for a prize. But now that some of y'all have starting working (note that JF is in the Hamptons still and ER in St. Barths, and I am not making jokes this time), I figured I would get back to it.

The writing comp, as you all know, sucked. There was no motivation to be had, and really nothing to say about the quality of what I turned it. Except that I did print my stuff out on pink scented paper, so that might help.

Also, I was lucky enough to have to go home right after the writing comp and start packing to move uptown. I now live alone, so now when I die from my xanax overdose, no one will ever find me. But at least I can walk around naked.

2006-05-25T11:53:00.000-04:00

So with hours to go before we have to hand this puppy in, I am obvi reading the Thursday Styles section online. This article about bloggers was interesting, and my favorite part was:

Busted bloggers like Jessica Cutler (a former Capitol Hill intern whose blog, Washingtonienne, is now a novel), Nadine Haobsh (a former beauty editor whose blog Jolie in NYC earned her a two-book deal) and Jeremy Blachman (a lawyer whose blog Anonymous Lawyer is being released as "Anonymous Lawyer: A Novel" this summer) were all interns, entry-level employees and worker bees who traded up on in-the-trade secrets.

DO YOU THINK F.U. LAW WILL KICK ME OUT FOR THIS BLOG AND THEN I CAN GET A BOOK DEAL??? How fun would that be! Dean N-E, if you are reading this, please call about kicking me out before 4pm so I don't unnecessarily spend $100 on printing twenty-something copies of this thing (notice I used the numeral form for 100, but the written form for twenty! LOL, Bluebook is so fun!!).

Anyway, if you have any scandalous things that I can get in trouble for, please let me know, and I will keep you in mind when I look to hire my research assistant for the blog book to research such topics as why Oasis only works during business hours and an expose on what goes on in those journal offices once the writing competition entries are in.

If I do well on this, maybe I'll make Law Review, and then maybe I will get a job at Cravath, and then maybe I will meet my husband!

2006-05-24T15:34:00.000-04:00

If you had no motivation to finish this writing competition before, well now you do. It turns out that if you get a job at a top firm in NYC, you can land up with a 2.5-carat, radiant-cut, platinum-set fancy yellow diamond from Fred Leighton!

The Observer's Love Beat (think Sunday Styles with sarcasm and some prescription drugs) tells the story of two C-vath associates who happened to find love at the office. While I do think such love is possible (I mean, Prof F and his wife met at C-vath and are lovely people), this couple makes me a little worried. And it's not because their interactions make me want to vomit. It's because of this:

The following weekend, they decided to rent a car for a quick Hamptons getaway—only Mr. Perese, again, was working till midnight...Yes, on a Saturday. After he’d finished, they hailed a passing pedicab and took it to Hertz, hitting the road at 2 a.m. in a bright yellow Chevy Cobalt. They arrived at their B&B at 4 a.m.

A BED AND BREAKFAST? We are slaving away learning the bluebook to get these jobs only to have to stay at a BED AND BREAKFAST?!? If my C-vath husband and I cannot at least rent a house our first summer, this whole existence is meaningless, and he can keep the ring.

Like Sand Through the Hourglass...

2006-05-23T12:14:00.000-04:00

Days of Our Lives was really good yesterday. I haven't really watched the show in 3 years, but it's nice to know that the Sammy-Austin-Lucas love and marriage triangle is still going on, at least I have that stability in my life. I also went through the three months of mail pile in my bedroom, which revealed a lot of angry letters from Cingular wireless, including some from a "collection agency." The sad part is, the amount in controversy is only $1.75, which seems like less than what the collection agent spends on the Starbucks he buys while he is waiting for me to come home. I also practiced my French (Je voudrais chevre svp) at the French cafe in my soon to be ex-neighborhood, spent about an hour on the phone with Applecare, found out that I need my laptop for work next Tuesday, which means I will probably get fired, went to dinner, and then re-organized my CD collection and listened to old hits like Arrested Development (Mr. Wendel, yeah yeah) and En Vogue (Free Your Mind, and the Rest Will Follow).

All in all, a very productive day, except for the fact that I have not really started this thing we call the "Writing Competition." The big manila envelope sits anxiously on my desk, my number (24601) looking me down and singing to me all day long about my enslavement to the Bluebook. I want to write it, I really do, but I simply don't think I have it in me. Do you think if I just print out all these posts and add some endnotes, it would count?

Anyway, tonight is dinner at my sister's and maybe I'll work on doing some damage to my netflix queue...and then maybe after The Notebook I'll get started, will keep you posted. But right now I have to go...I have to make lunch before "Days" starts at 1.

And So It Begins...

2006-05-22T10:05:00.000-04:00

Well I have been going out non-stop since the Con Law final, but no bar/club/celebrity birthday party I have been to has had a line quite like the writing comp packet pick up line last night. I tried to find the VIP line, but I think they forgot to set one up. Some commemorative images below.

It was nice to see people after they had some time to get their eyebrows done and roots touched up, because things were looking a little scary the last day of finals, but everyone seems to be doing better now. Can't wait to see what y'all look like Thursday at 6:59:59, and I especially can't wait to see what you people who show up at 7:01 look like.

I imagine we will be dropping out of this competition like flies, so please post a comment the moment you decide to bail out, so we have a way of keeping track.

The line for cupcakes isn't even this long.

"Man, I need to stop dating Law Students."

By the time these people got in, Lindsay Lohan had already left.

And to the fans...

2006-05-18T23:06:00.000-04:00

So my laptop committed suicide right after the last post. Right after I printed out all my con law outlines, it basically said to me: "This year has been great -- 14 hour days together, every day, including weekends, was real...but I just can't take it anymore. I am really sorry to leave you right before the writing competition, but the thought of going back to the F.U. Law Libes is enough to drive anyone's hard drive to imbibe the bottle of grey goose that's been in the freezer since New Year's along with your month's supply of ambien. Best, Laptop."

So I am sorry to the fans for being MIA the last few days, but I myself just came out of a food and alcohol coma, and am now just feeling the loss of laptop. I wasn't even going to post this week, but felt inspired after Prof JP and I had the following encounter at the Section 5/6 Baseball outing (I think it was the Yankees? Someone confirm).

FW: Hi Prof JP, how are you?
Prof JP: Great, are you glad to be done?
FW: Yeah, it feels really great.
Prof JP: Yeah, and now you must have more time to blog.
FW: Uhhh...yeah.

Prof M was also there, and when we told him Trace Higgs ordered our tests from "Best" to "Least Best" and asked him what his system was for Civ Pro, he just laughed. We can only imagine what Prof H.B.'s system is for K.

The first thing on the 5 days of no law school to do list is to reacclimate myself to society...

2006-05-15T19:11:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow this nightmare known as finals will finally be over, and though I am thrilled, I am kind of getting cold feet about rejoining the world. I must admit I went out on Friday night for 20 minutes since a friend was visiting from out of town and was at a bar 4 blocks from my apt, and it was not pretty.

I got a beer (GASP) and tried to stand at the bar with my friends and the other boys watching the girls dance to that lovely lady lumps song, but something just wasn't right, and it wasn't the fact that I was at a bar with girls inside. It was that I hadn't seen normal people in so long that I was just so unsure about so many things. Like for instance, I forgot that people actually wear nice things when they leave the house, or that they shave, or that their dermatologists actually fix their break outs.

Also, I really had nothing to say since I haven't had many non-outline related experiences recently. "I STARTED A BLOG," I remember blurting out at some point, but that is just not a cool thing to say to people whom you have not seen in many months. Because then you are not just a nerdy law student, you are a nerdy law student blogger. When they were like, "Well, you're almost done," I recall saying something like "YES BUT THEN I HAVE TO DO A WRITING COMPETITION," which also sounds extremely uncool to an unwitting non-law school friend. "What do you win?" they inevitably ask, clearly thinking this thing is optional. "TWO YEARS OF CITE CHECKING," I think I said, but really, I have no clue. It was all a blur. I just remember that no one laughed.

Anyway, I hope you all (and I) fare better tomorrow night when you inevitably drink too much because your tolerance is gone and wake up in the dorms even though you don't live there. Just remember to take your blue-books with you, because not being able to read it during your walk of shame would really suck.

And of ALL the days to do this, they choose mother's day...

2006-05-14T14:22:00.000-04:00

Since Con Law studying and Mother's Day happen to be overlapping today, I am particularly attuned to any gender discrimination that might be going on here at F.U. Law. So you can imagine my surprise when I walked past the women's restroom on the garden level to see a letter posted on the door about a recent mugging in the neighborhood. I assumed that the same letter would be posted on the men's bathroom door to warn at least the gays not to walk alone in the 'hood, but, alas, there was no such warning. Being the procrastinator that I am, I set out to find where else said letter was posted. I have only encountered one other copy in the library elevator.

If I were to inquire into the purpose of these selective postings, I would have to say that F.U. Law security is making a classification here: girls and those people too lazy to walk up the stairs are the most likely to get taken advantage of by a 5 ft 4 inch 45-50 year old hispanic woman. I guess in the end, the gays were warned, since I haven't seen one take the stairs since September.

A Gender Based Classification.

No Letter. Someone invoke heightened scrutiny, and quick.
Or is it intermediate. I have no f-ing clue and the test is on Tuesday.

The Security Alert in question.

The Celebs Love the Con Law Too...

2006-05-12T18:57:00.000-04:00

Don't know if you happened to notice in the most recent Gawker Stalker, but anyone who is worth absolutely anything has been hanging around F.U. Law recently. A sampling below. A source close to Dean T reports that he is planning a star studded benefit gala for the victims of IcedCoffeeMeltdown, so maybe they were here for rehearsal, but perhaps it's something else.

If you happen to see any more celebs, don't let them have ANY cupcakes, whatever you do. I once ran into Hillary Duff at Magnolia and learned the hard way that celebrities + sugar = a nightmare for everyone involved.

Jessica Simpson walking back into her hotel after a night of NYC clubbing. 12:30am 59th and Columbus...

Saw Anderson Cooper last night at Whole Foods at Columbus Circle at around 8 p.m...

Eva Longoria—5:15pm, 9th ave and 57th street...

Dustin Hoffman walking alone in Columbus circle...

Saw Will Smith at the Mandarin Oriental...

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, at CVS pharmacy on the corner of 58th & 9th...

Paul Simon sneaking out the back door of the Lincoln Jazz Center at the Time Warner Bldg...

Time Warner Building, May 9th, 3pm, I saw Ivanka Trump in the bathroom on the third floor...

F.U. Law fears group suicide once grades come out...Organizes seminar to convince us to hold on for a bit longer...

2006-05-11T21:56:00.000-04:00

So apparantly F.U. Law thinks we are all going to die before we hit 35. For once, they may be right. I don't plan to make it to mid Summer, so my mid-thirties is pretty much out of the question. As such, I don't really see the point of me going, but maybe some of y'all should go and get some tips such as how not to jump out of your firm window or the client's corporate jet. Also I am sure they will touch on not overdosing on your anti-depressants and propecia until you are 36 or G*d forbid 40.

From: Career- Planning
Date: Thursday - May 11, 2006 2:47 PM
Subject: SBA Program: Getting to 35

Hi Class of 2007 and 2008,

The SBA Program, Getting to 35, will be held on Sunday, June 11th at 8pm in the Moot Court Room and Monday, June 12th at 8pm in the Moot Court Room. These two sessions are identical but neither will be videotaped.

The SBA will be sending email announcements about this program and posting flyers. This is not a CPC program.

Thank you
The Career Planning Center

What you could be writing about if you were still in college, instead of at F-ing F.U. Law...

2006-05-10T21:23:00.000-04:00

ER and I are studying at the law school down south today, and found all the 1Ls drinking 40s in the courtyard at 3pm after their last final. ER slapped one in the face a la Joan Crawford hitting Christina in front of Barbara Bennett when he asked her if she wanted some beer.

Also, we found the following college senior thesis at the printer, and it literally made us cry:

Popular Representations of Jewish Identity on Primetime Television: The Case of The O.C.

including:

Chapter 4: Television and the Construction of a White, Post Jewish Identity: A Close Reading of The O.C.

Page 5's topic heading is "A Chrismukkah Story."

THIS THING IS 109 PAGES PEOPLE.

First we cried from laughing so hard...and then we cried from sadness, as we realized people out there get to do things like this and we don't. Don't get me wrong, I wrote my fair share of bullshit papers in college (The Gap Ads one comes to mind), but I somehow feel that those days are behind me. Obvi, I am going to find a way to mention Seth and Summer on the K final tomorrow.

Examining the Examiner: Bush approval rating way down, but at least we can all agree on the poopy smell back on 4/20...

2006-05-10T14:36:00.000-04:00

The Examiner vigilantly continues to explore reactions to the bad, septic-esque smell on the garden level back on April 20th (4-20...huh huh...huh huh) through its online, interactive, fancy schmancy poll, and F.U. Law Students continue to agree overwhelmingly that it was, in fact, awful. A source at the Examiner tells us that upcoming polls include current, hot-button topics such as 1Ls' thoughts on "Legal Process" and whether Kanye's reaction to Katrina was overdramatic or an accurate assessment of race relations in America.

Did you notice the overwhelming stench in the corridor
of the basement level on Thursday, April 20?

Answers		Votes	Percent
1.	Yes, and it was awful	51	70%
2.	Yes, but it's got nothing on the Lowenstein entrance	7	10%
3.	Yes, and I think it was an Earth Day project	5	7%
4.	Nope, I've never been to the basement level	3	4%
5.	Nope, it blended in the usual smell of trash	7	10%

LibraryIcedCoffeeMeltdown5/3/06Watch Day Something or the Other: T-Shirts are designed, and just in time for summer!

2006-05-09T15:40:00.000-04:00

Since people clearly only read this blog when it has to do with the IcedCoffeeMeltdown, it's a good thing Marc Jacobs finally got back to me on the T-Shirt design, or pretty soon we would be back to just JF, ER and CH reading this thing. I am heading over to his Bleecker St. store after the K final Thursday, so I'll be in the best position to talk confidently about pricing and quantity, and orders can be sent in after the K is signed. Start thinking about color and sizes now.

David Blaine is Dunzo, Can Stop Secretly Coming into the F.U. Law Building at 3am to Take a Crap in the Garden Level Men's Bathroom

2006-05-09T10:57:00.000-04:00

So stuntman/ magician/ overallsuperfreak David Blaine failed to break the record last night (boo hoo). At least now we finally can go back to studying in peace. A reader pointed out an interesting quote from the NYTimes piece:

To the matter of Mr. Blaine's unusual choice of vocation, one always wants to ask: What would have been so bad about law school?

I totally agree. Because sitting here trying to memorize a UCC Damages FlowChart is sooooo much better than sitting in a tank for a week while children and celebrities come and knock on the glass.

Also interesting was this quote from another article:

Earlier Monday, a doctor who supervised Blaine's underwater routine told the New York Times that his patient was "pushing his body insanely to the limits." "I told him he needed to get out of the water, and he refused me," Dr. Murat Gunel said in the newspaper. "He said he did not want to let the people down."

Well if the at least five “I hope he dies” I heard when finally going to see him are any indication…I am pretty sure he let people down anyway.

FishWatch Exclusive: The Exam Proctor Interview

2006-05-08T15:08:00.000-04:00

FishWatch had an opportunity today to sit down with F.U. Law School exam proctor, Proctor Flo, to ask the questions F.U. Law Students have always wanted to ask of the people who come in and out of our lives twice a year.

FW: Tell me Flo, how did you get involved in Proctoring?
Flo: Well, my friend Virginia had been doing it for a while over at Brooklyn Law, and I thought it sounded really fun, so asked around and found out that F.U. Law had some openings. This was about 13 years ago at this point. Wow, time flies.

FW: And what do you do during the rest of the year?
Flo: I substitute teach at East Islip Junior and Senior High School out on Long Island.

FW: Flo, how come proctors always seem to mess up people's names? And I'm not just talking about the ethnic ones.
Flo: Well, actually, it's a little game we proctors like to play, you know, to do our part for society...letting the Smiths and Jones' of the world know what it's like to be different in a world that shuns nonconformity.

FW: What do you like to do for fun during the exam?
Flo: I like to make up stories about each student, think about back-stories for each one, kind of like on "Lost." Sometimes I'll bring a book, but the other proctors tend to read over my shoulder and I just can't stand that, so most of the time I am developing the back-stories.

FW: How do you guys decide who gets to read the instructions and give the 15 minute warning? It seems to me that it's always the same person, like, you guys never switch off.
Flo: Well it's strict seniority. I have been here for 13 years, started out as a hall monitor, but worked my way up to #2 room proctor. Alice, my co-proctor, signed up about a month before me, so she gets to do the instructions and stuff, but her husband just took a job down in Florida, so I think next winter I'll start with the instructions and warnings and someone else will have to do the exam collection and singing out.

FW: What's the worst thing that has ever happened during a test?
Flo: Back in Spring 1997, Alice and I ran out of bluebooks and those people down in the [Ken P's] office weren't sending up new ones fast enough, so the kids were getting really mad. I mean, we couldn't stop time or anything, and things just got out of control. People had to start writing on like the back blue page and stuff until [Ken P's] people came about 2 minutes later. Oh and when we switched from SS#s to FINs last semester, a few people in my room couldn't remember their FINs so it created some sticky situations.

FW: Any last words of advice?
Flo: Just remember to number all your stuff before time is called, because you really can't write anything after the test is over. I know kids don't like that rule, but it would just be easier on everyone if everyone just followed it.

FW: Well thanks so much for sitting down with FishWatch, Flo. Hope to see you at the K final.
Flo: My pleasure. Good luck on exams, especially to the 1Ls.

More fun with real property...

2006-05-07T19:06:00.000-04:00

If you thought that constant cupcake pushing was not evidence enough of Dean T's sweet tooth, take a look at what I uncovered in Dukeminier...

For discussion of the contemporary significance of Pennsylvania Coal, see [Dean T], Jam for Jusice Holmes: Reasessing the Significance of Mahon, 86 Geo. L.J. 813 (1998).
--Jesse Dukeminer, Property, pg 1148

FishWatch is planning an exclusive with Dean T's dentist to get his take on all this.

And if you can't already tell by my culling through the text book for pretty meaningless quotes, things are not looking good for tomorrow.

Why Dukeminier, that is a good question...

2006-05-07T17:51:00.000-04:00

“If you conclude, as do some courts, that transsexuals, but not persons of the same sex, should be able to marry, why must a man have his penis and testicles removed in order to marry his male partner?”
--Jesse Dukeminier, Property, pg 441

The Soundtrack of Our Lives

2006-05-06T16:48:00.001-04:00

JF, ER and I have been going over property, and to really get the material down, we decided to play songs on my laptop that correlate with the issue at hand. The playlist is below, and I'll try and figure out how to upload it on itunes so you can download it and maybe I can make some sort of profit. We are missing some topics, so please feel free to add what you are listening to.

Native Title:
"Colors of the Wind" from the feature film Pocahontas, performed by Vanessa Williams (pop single), or ~~Lea Salonga~~ Judy Kuhn (film version).

Marital Property:
"Confessions of a Broken Heart" (Daughter to Father) - a song about a daughter's despair and anger towards her deadbeat father, performed by Lindsay Lohan.

Feudal Foundations of Estates in Land:
Bach 704, Harpsichord Partitas 1-3, BWV 825-7, performed by Derek Adlam, Feldberg Harpsichord.

Zoning and Land Use Regulations:
“We Built This City (on Rock n’ Roll)” performed by Jefferson Starship.

The Rule of Capture, Pierson v. Post:
Soundtrack to Walt Disney’s “The Fox and the Hound,” performed by the Walt Disney Studios Orchestra, Zubin Metha, Conductor.

Homelessness and the Right to Shelter:
“Homeless” performed by Paul Simon, featuring Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Don't worry, the Po-Po are here to protect us...

2006-05-05T14:49:00.000-04:00

I don't want to speculate as to why the fuzz is outside in large numbers, for fear of fanning flames, so will just OBSERVE that there are a large numbers of po-po outside the building, the timing of which does raise some eyebrows...

FishWatch Poll

2006-05-05T13:52:00.000-04:00

Would you rather be in the tank with David Blaine, or studying future interests? Unforch, I don't have that special F.U. Law Examiner poll technology, but we'll make do:

___ Tank with David Blaine and his catheter

___ To A for life, then to B and the hairs of his body.