like a fish needs a bicycle...

law students can have fun too

i realize tonight is halloween, so these pictures might seem a bit premature, but we had our fall ball this past thursday night. it was, suprisingly, lots of fun. i'm thinking that's at least partly because it was a welcome study break.

i even got to dance, which usually means i had a good time. although, the DJ did play all '80s music, which is OK for a while, i guess. i danced to "jessie's girl" and all that. of course, turns out it was only totally '80s night until i left. apparently, within minutes of my departure, he started playing hip hop. soooo typical of my life. :) still, though, we had fun. (see exhibits below.)

and as a side note, little kids in costumes who are too young to know they're dressed up are sooooo cute.

complaint

dear intersection of 3rd and macdougal,

is it really necessary to have angry honking duels at all hours of the night? i realize that if the cab in front of you doesn't go at exactly the millisecond that the light turns green, your life will forever be changed for the worse.

the question is, though,will it really make things better if you honk at him for 20 seconds non-stop? and will your life improve if he then, in turn, honks back at you for 24 seconds non-stop? and will anyone be happy if you all start honking and yelling out your windows at each other simultaneously, so loudly that i can hear it through a closed window on the 5th floor at ungodly hours?

and mr. officer, is it really part of your job description to have a siren symphony in the early hours of the morning? either turn your siren on, or don't. it's not a toy. and you don't have musical talent. so don't switch it on and off so the first start-up tone repeats endlessly at uneven intervals and only exacerbates the cacophony of horns.

i know you new yorkers have to assert yourselves at every second to every person or inanimate object in your field of vision, in every possible way. but would it be too much to ask to just abstain from your jerk exercises at this one intersection? law school affords this whole building enough sleep disturbance. thank you.

~naseem

yabba-dabba-do

so the other day i bought a box of cocoa pebbles for the first time in years.

the image appears courtesy of post

it's almost gone. i don't even know how many bowls i've eaten in the past 4 days. i think i've been eating healthy adult cereals for so long that i'd truly forgotten how much i love kids' cereals. i'm now convinced that they really enhance the quality of life. i recommend eating them. and i'm determined to experiment with some more old favorites now (even the ones that don't directly contribute to my chocoholism). here's what's on my list for now, but y'all feel free to give me suggestions:

- fruity pebbles
- golden grahams
- rice krispie treats
- froot loops
- pops
- trix

on a somewhat related note, here's a frightening press release about some kids cereals that i don't plan on eating: the ones that are now made with splenda. good thing we're giving kids gas instead of giving them sugar -- that'll fix everything. i love america.

runs in the family

wow, my mom's a smarty-pants. (see the last comment on the page). oh well... guess that explains where i get it... :)

good to know

tonight i discovered that, when writing a legal memo, it really helps to listen to "spybreak" by propellor heads (that's the song from the cool fight scene in the matrix).

it definitely makes you feel like much more of a bad-ass when citing supreme court cases.

real sickness

so i just found about the "real doll." i'm so disgusted, and yet not surprised at all.

i won't link to the official site here, as it's a cesspool of foul things and contains some images that i found disturbing. but i'll tell you that men out there are paying over $6,000 for 3D silicon women. they're designed to look very realistic, and i suppose they're also life-size and life-weight, if your frame of reference is anorexics (they weigh about 100 pounds).

i don't even want to think about the kinds of things these men are doing with their dolls at home, but here's an article on an abuse of an already misused amalgamation of materials.

i just can't help but wonder what the hell is wrong with our society. when i was in college, i once went to a lecture on pornography given by a former porn addict (male) and a former porn star (female). it was a packed house, and there was lots of controversy. but i learned something. up to that point, i was completely baffled as to why people woud watch porn--i just could not wrap by brain around what purpose it was actually serving. maybe some people could understand--i definitely couldn't.

but that night, both of the speakers talked about feeling empty, unfulfilled, disconnected... they said they had no meaningful relationships in life, that they were seeking substance. and they turned to porn, thinking they could find those things. of course the porn didn't fulfill them (no surprise), but actually made their lives worse and destroyed any hope for meaning or fulfillment that they might have had at the time. so when their lives hit rock bottom, they finally had to rid themselves of their illness and then had to rebuild things from scratch, deciding to make it their life's work to help others diagnose their sickness before it was too late.

it was all very illuminating, and i can't help but think those insights apply here. i'm willing to venture a guess that there is huge overlap in the porn consumer population and real doll consumer population, and i'm slightly disturbed at this newest tangible incarnation of emptiness. that sounds oxymoronic of course, but i really think that's what this is.

my question is how do people get this way? why do they get to the point where they have nothing and no one? why is there such a void that they try to fill it with silicon? what are we as a society doing or not doing to allow them to reach that place? can't we pick them up before they get there? love them, help them, be willing to make connections with them?

and why are these people making these decisions? did they not learn what a healthy expression of the human sex drive is? did it never occur to them that owning a real doll is a sign of psycho-social maladjustment? and didn't anyone ever teach them to value women?

i can't help but feel a special tinge of pain at that last one... that's because i'm also willing to venture a guess that the overwhelming majority of consumers of real dolls (and porn) are men. and i can't help but wonder what this gender divide signifies. why are men doing this to themselves, to women, and to societal perceptions of women and the feimine ideal? i realize there are plenty of decent men out there.

but the illness is still rampant... and tacitly condoned... and contributing to the economy in massive ways. it's very real. even more real than a real doll.

and now for some visual aids

i feel like my blog has been picture-deprived lately. the text to photo ratio seems a little off... perhaps because i haven't been as picture-happy as usual since i moved. which is understandable, of course. class and studying don't provide too many kodak moments. i did, however, still manage to do some visual documentation of my life (if i hadn't managed to do any, there would probably be some cause for concern). so yeah, here's some stuff to look at--ok, a lot of stuff to look at. enjoy. :)

a taste of the city

my goodness, i love this site. for those of you who don't have the fortune of living in the madness of new york, here's a good way to get in on the amusement from wherever you are.

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com

of course, as silly as this sounds, we all know i have to endorse the white girl in this one.

also, check out this gem from the archives.

more reasons i love new york.

so sore

yeah, my whole body aches. girls IM basketball thursday night. co-ed IM football friday afternoon. tons of fun, of course. and the good news is that we won both games! the bad news is that, even though i work out, i'm out of shape when it comes to playing team sports. i just don't have the conditioning or range of motion that i used to. so even if i try to stretch it all out afterwads, i get sore--for at least a few days. basically, when i push myself, i feel it.

it's so strange that i'm barely 23 and i feel old. when i went to college i had the distinct impression that i had far less energy than i did in high school and that i was slowing down. i couldn't do near as much and i needed more sleep. at 18 i felt old. now that i've gone to law school, i'm experiencing that same feeling. i again feel less energetic and less intense--like i'm even older. it's only been 6 years since high school--what could be so different? yes, teenagers and their hormones... i realize that has to make some kind of difference and i probably did physically have more energy then.

but now i have another theory. maybe as i progress through my education and my academic and intellectual demands increase, it can take a toll on my body? of course, i love school. i always have. but perhaps i didn't realize that there's some kind of correlation between mental rigor and physical exhaustion? any one else experienced a similar decline of energy and intensity? did it ever seem related to school or work? thoughts on all this...?