exam time....

Surprisingly enough, this has been the most relaxing exam period of my entire law school career and that's mostly because I paid my dues to the world of law school stress all semester long as I was writing the 5 papers I had to write (this has, by far, been the worst semester yet even with this easy exam period). Because of all the paper classes, I only have one final in Constitutional Law (abortion, affirmative action, freedom of speech, right to bear arms, etc) and I have really enjoyed studying for it so far. My days mostly go like this: 9:00 (when most of you are already hard at work) I wake up. Then I make a breakfast and watch / listen / read the news. Then, around 10:00 I check my emails, read some more news, and get started on my studying. I do that at home or at the library all day with breaks to juggle my new soccer ball or go for runs. In the evenings I take a long break and study again after dinner until about 1 or 2 and go to bed. I think the fact that I have so much time to study is actually making this enjoyable...

But today merits a blog post because I reached a very important point in my studying... my outline is complete! Most law school exams are open book so having a really good outline that is perfectly organized and easy to use in the exam is crucial. In order to give you a sense of the extent to which this organization can be taken by nerdy law students I'm posting a photo of a "random" outline:

notice the table of contents and tabs for easy access to important information on constitutional law.... what you don't see is that each section is divided into cases on the left page (with all important aspects underlined) and law on the right page....

In hopes that all of you won't think I'm a complete nerd, I should mention that last Saturday I played a great soccer game. We tied 2-2... Revenge will have to wait until the playoffs... I also watched Kandahar, a movie about Afghanistan that I highly recommend, and I went out to dinner with Sohail. I just didn't have a camera for any of those events. And let's be honest, those things aren't nearly as exciting as a complete outline!

My exam's on Thursday and my last paper is due Monday and after that I hope not to take photos of anything on my desk for months to come.

Spring's finally here!

My favorite tree is in bloom all over DC!

Does anyone know what this tree is called?
A victorious team!

My roommates Anne & Ben enjoying the sun (and some homemade guacamole) on our stoop.

The weather has finally decided to cooperate and it is beautiful in DC. So I took advantage of it and played soccer on Saturday with my women's team. We won 3-1. Then I hung out with my roommates Anne & Ben for a little while in the afternoon. They're both great cooks and had made fresh guacamole & salsa to enjoy outside in the sun. Then, I went for a long walk around DC in the afternoon.

Sunday I played tennis with Sohail. Well, maybe "played" is an overstatement. The truth goes more like this: Sohail was kind enough to occasionally hit the balls in my direction exactly arms length from my body so I'd have the satisfaction of hitting a few back until I stopped playing because of the massive blisters I developed on my thumb and forefinger and I left Sohail to practice his serves! Seriously, we had a lot of fun and I fully intend on being a slightly below average tennis player by the end of the summer (I strive for mediocrity in life). Then we went for another nice walk through DC and had a sushi dinner on a terrace.

For those of you who may be worried about my lack of studying at this moment in the semester (Maman...) don't be! I studied plenty and will be studying all week long.

weekend de pacques avec ma Maman cherie

Two posts in two days!? That's right... I'm back!

Here are some photos of Maman's visit last weekend. We both had high hopes of spending our time admiring the beautiful cherry blossoms but unfortunately it was freezing (it even snowed on Saturday) and we stayed inside most of the time. Fortunately, we were inside museums, inside concernt halls (one japanese concert and on brazilian concert), inside shops, and inside restaurants.

It was a wonderful weekend and now I feel fully refreshed to attack my finals.

Japanese concert at the Kennedy Center
the extent of our participation in the Cherry Blossom Festival

Snowy Saturday!

Maman on the "weightless" chair that is part of the Modernisim exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. This room was really cool because it was decorated entirely with furnishing from when modernism was at its height (1914-1939) and everyone can test everything out. That particular chair is extremely comfortable.

A beautiful orchid at the Botanical Gardens that I saw when I ran around capitol hill searching for Maman after I realized my office was closed for Good Friday. Unfortunately we never found one another before lunch time despite visiting the same exhibits at the same museum (the french ones at the Nat'l Gallery)...

Easter brunch with two of my best friends in DC - Alicia and Luna - and with Maman who was everyone's mother for an hour during brunch!

soccer season!

George Washington alumni team

WMD - can anyone find me?

First, I'd like to apologize for not posting anything in so long. School has been keeping me busy so my life hasn't been particularly blog worthy (unless you like photos of laptops and books and links to boring law school papers) and I haven't started carrying my camera around to share the daily DC oddities with you.

Last week Maman was in town for her spring break and we had a wonderful time but I'll share more on that once I get the pictures from her...

Since Maman left on Sunday, my biggest distraction has been the flurry of emails in my inbox from my two soccer teams. I'm really excited to start playing again and will be playing up to 2 games a weekend for the next 10 weeks. That's probably more soccer than time spend in any one law school class! My women's team is called WMD (Women of Mass Destruction). I played with them last season and it was pure fun. The co-ed team is in an alumni league so we're [not so creatively] called George Washington. However, they are creative in terms of jersey color considering GW's colors are gold and blue... This will be my first time playing on the team but I've played with a lot of the people in weekend pick-up games. In any case, I just can't wait to be back on the field!