TLF

When I got to UT Law I heard pretty quickly about an organization called TLF, or Texas Law Fellowships. My mentor is on TLF and she's one of those people who makes everything sound like a ton of fun, but that wasn't the only reason I decided to join. TLF raises money every year to fund law students working in unpaid public service internships in the summer. This is a really important thing to do because without this money, many of the nonprofit organizations would not be able to host the intern and many interns would not be able to work for the organizations. I joined TLF because I loved the idea of law students raising money largely from other law students in order to help fund, yes, law students. The self-sufficiency of it impressed me. Professors also get in on the action, donating time and money to support our fundraising efforts. It's an incredibly cooperative endeavor and I am so proud to be a part of it.

I also love how every time TLF thinks of spending money on something we remind ourselves that any overhead we have only takes away from a fellowship we can give. TLF is one of those rare fundraising operations that actually gives almost all of its money to the people for whom the money is raised. Now you can probably tell where I'm headed.

Because [insert familiar economic explanation here], this year we have a ton of applicants and not a ton of money to fund. Our Spring pledge drive starts tomorrow and we need money! Check out our website (http://www.utexas.edu/law/orgs/tlf/) and please chip in. When you donate $25 or more you receive 6 votes to choose which students you want to see receive a fellowship. Look on the PayPal site for a link to write in your votes. There is a list on our homepage of the applicants so you can see the awesome nonprofit work UT law students are doing and choose your votes accordingly. By donating you will feel vicarious fulfillment through the students' acts of selflessness.

TLF also has a sweet motto "make love not law review," which makes us sound like a crew of free-loving intellectuals who don't care much for prestigious labels. If that doesn't make you want to give us money I don't know what will.

postscript

I just reread the last post and I am afraid I may have overplayed the relative monotony of this semester. Perhaps these points aren't redeeming at all, but I played on a skee-ball team last week (and we kicked ass), I recently perfected my migas recipe, and I am absolutely pumped for my summer job working in capital defense. And I have been listening to an old Modest Mouse album a lot lately, which just somehow makes my life feel more cool and exciting.

1L Spring

Today in Contracts our professor pointed out that we're on class 25 of about 50 this semester. Halfway through. A maddening idea.

This semester has been so different from last, which is a big reason I've been awful at keeping up the blog. Last semester I came to Austin and UT with my eyes wide and my jaw often dropped. I had no idea what to expect and I was ready for the challenge of accustoming my life to this weird city and to the equally but very differently weird experiment of being a first-semester 1L. Though there were pangs of loneliness, I certainly never regretted displacing myself to what was in many ways, a foreign land. The learning curve for a first semester 1L is incredibly steep, and seeing the day to day molding of my mind was fascinating and extremely validating. By the end of the semester I was encapsulated by law school and though it was trying at times, I loved every moment of it. I was high on the challenge of school and the newness of my life in Austin. I was constantly inspired and I tried to reflect that in keeping up this blog.

And now onto this semester. My love for school has not waned, nor has my appreciation for this great city. But the newness has faded and I am settled into my life as a law student more than ever. My life is mostly consumed by school and the various extracurriculars that have seemed to creep up on me. Plus I had the extra weight of finding a summer job. In one word, this semester is more focused.

I could tell the first day of classes that this semester was going to be a different thing. People raised their hands, almost unheard of first semester. Gone were the butterflies fluttering around the stomachs of fall 1L's. It was as if people had been doing push ups over winter break to get their biceps in tip-top hand-raising shape. Depending on grades from last semester people either got it in their minds that they needed to step it up, or they needed to maintain their edge. Either way, the wide-eyed fawns of last semester were replaced by a herd of mature bucks. This can be intellectually enthralling or totally annoying.

Though it's not obvious, I like the focus of this semester. However it has turned me into a bore. I wake up at 6 AM, I am home at 7 PM. I cook a healthy dinner, allow myself some wine, and curl up in bed with a casebook or more recently, with Foucault's Ethics (don't be impressed: I chose Foucault for the guaranteed inducement of sleep). I have taken to lighting candles in my apartment when I am home and I use scented soaps. Sometimes I have a friend over for dinner and I go to Pilates twice a week. I go out once a week and on weekends usually spend the days at the library.

As you can tell there's less excitement, which means less inspiration. However I will wrap up with this conversation I had at Urban Outfitters tonight. Even though my life this winter in Austin has admittedly been a bit vanilla, the city never fails to throw you some humor.

(I was wearing a t-shirt that said "Make Love not Law Review.")

Sales guy: Are you a law student?

Me: Yup.

Sales guy: What kind of law do you do?

Me: Not sure yet but I think criminal law.

Sales guy: Nice, I can help you out with that. (I think he meant he can help me get clients.)

Ecuador Top Ten

So I wasn't great at keeping up a travel log. I'm going to cheat and reconstruct the vacation now, with a top ten list of moments in Ecuador. "Top" doesn't necessarily mean best; in this context, it means notable. In chronological order:

1.) The second day of the trip we went with a group from our hostel to Cotopaxi, a 16,000 ft volcano 50 m outside Quito. Robby and I sat in the back of an SUV as we drove to a parking lot from which we hiked to the base camp. The road was incredibly windy, taking switchbacks to tackle the incline. As we were hugging a blind curve, a jeep came racing down the mountain and swerved to miss us as it came around the curve. The jeep then fishtailed, and flipped, as Robby and I witnessed with our jaws dropped. Our vehicle stopped to help, and thankfully no one was hurt. The driving in Ecuador is INSANE!

2.) Once we reached the base camp of Cotopaxi (after the longest one-mile hike I have ever done - the altitude sickness was very apparent all the way up there), Robby and I opted to hike further to the glacier. On our way up we spotted an Andean wolf (which is actually a kind of fox) and I let Robby continue with the guide to the glacier since I was having trouble breathing. I sat and watched the wolf, its red fur in stark contrast with the surrounding snow and bare terrain. I noticed a young Ecuadorian man watching it as well and we starting chatting; this was a good opportunity to practice my Spanish. He is a veterinary student in Quito and we talked about traveling in Ecuador. He asked if I travel much and I said no, to which he asked why. It's amazing how an elementary understanding of a language can bring about the simplest, yet also most complex questions. I realized I didn't have a satisfying answer for him.

3.) The driving in Ecuador was what scared me the most; I didn't really feel in danger unless I was in a taxi or a bus. As we were in a bus from Quito to Tena (probably a 6,000 ft drop in altitude), winding down the mountains, I noticed none of the Ecuadorians were nervous like me and I asked Robby if they're simply less fearful than I. He replied, "they don't have the luxury of your bratty fears." Point taken.

4.) New Year's Eve was my most memorable yet. Robby and I arrived in Tena, a town known as the gateway to the Amazon, and renowned for its white water rafting. We went to Tena with the intention of taking a rafting trip but when we arrived in the afternoon of NYE all the rafting places were closed. Had we planned or simply thought better we would have realized that New Year's Day is not a realistic date for a guided white water rafting adventure. Tena was a rundown town and Robby and I were sorely disappointed and both bordering on grumpy. But we resolved to enjoy the holiday and do everything we could to see some of the jungle the following day. Our hotel set us up with a jungle tour/tubing trip (not exactly what we had in mind but sufficient considering the circumstances) and we went into town looking for drink and food to start the evening.

In Ecuador, the New Year's tradition is to burn large effigies when the clock strikes midnight. They are made and sold in the weeks leading up to the holiday and are of notable figures; we saw representations of Correa, Chavez, Michael Jackson, and "Oil Men." The effigies were displayed throughout Tena in anticipation of midnight and when the sun went down, fireworks started. By fireworks starting, I mean street vendors sold fireworks to children who then indiscriminately set them off in the town square, where everyone was gathered and a band was playing. Robby and I spent the evening hopping between a nearby bar and the town square, dancing to the band and taking tequila shots with Canadians who were much drunker than we. At midnight, the bonfire of effigies began and everyone hugged and kissed. One Ecuadorian man proudly and repeatedly said to us in English, "Happy New Year!" and we hugged everyone as well, with some Ecuadorian men taking the opportunity to get a kiss in with me. The mood was exhilarating, the band was terrific, and we couldn't stop dancing. I'm thinking of taking salsa lessons now that I'm back in Austin.

5.) From Tena we went to Vilcabamba, a small village in a valley in southern Ecuador. I had heard of Vilcabamba as "the valley of longevity," with many centenarian residents. When Robby and I arrived in the morning we were hungry for breakfast and went to a local restaurant recommended in one of our guidebooks. As we sat down, a circle of ex-pat hippie musicians had formed in the courtyard, who broke out into a chanting song of "hare krishna." We had heard Vilcabamba attracted a New Age crowd but I don't think we realized what a presence this crowd actually had in Vilcabamba. The next day we took a taxi from our hosteria into town with a middle-aged man from Hawaii who was looking to buy property in the area. He told us that Vilcabamba is a vortex, along with a town in Australia and a place in Arizona. Robby and I had no idea what he was talking about. "You know, chakra," he explained. Robby and I nodded.

6.) Steve. We met him in Vilcabamba. He is a lacrosse ref from the DC area so he immediately liked Robby. And "Steve" is Robby's default name so I think Robby immediately liked him. Steve's in his mid-forties and was in Ecuador with his girlfriend, whose sister had moved to Vilcabamba with her boyfriend. The sister thinks America is coming to an end, and perhaps the world will end in 2012, so she moved to Ecuador (makes perfect sense, right?). The sister's boyfriend was the nicest guy I've ever met and he followed her to Vilcabamba. Unfortunately, Steve and his girlfriend had broken up earlier in the trip because of a fight over a rental car and were stuck together for the rest of the trip. Robby and I ended up hanging out with Steve and Alan (the sister's boyfriend) and took an all-day horseback trip into the mountains with them. Which brings me to #7...

7.) Our 8-hour trip into the mountains surrounding Vilcabamba. I hadn't been on a horse in over 15 years and I think Robby had been on one once in his life so we were a bit underprepared. Alan and Steve joined us and by 9:30 AM we were literally galloping out of town into the mountains. I remember it being a big deal when I got a horse up to a canter when I was taking lessons as a little girl so I wasn't ready for the full gallop but what a rush it was! The trek up the mountain was scary, being on a horse that is climbing to 2300 m, seeming to teeter on its small hooves. The horses would slip and I was sure I would be bucked all the way back into the valley, but we all made it safely to the top. We let the horses graze while we hiked to a nearby waterfall for a lunch of fresh cheese and guacamole. The ride down the mountain was just as scary as the ride up and our butts were getting pretty sore. As we approached town, the horses went into a full gallop through the village and the town square. The feeling of galloping into a town with a cowboy hat on and seeing people peering out windows or stepping into doorways to watch you pass is incomparable; one of the greatest feeling of all time. It was a moment that requires a soundtrack.

8.) From Vilcabamba we went to Cuenca, a city in central Ecuador known for its Catholic tradition and history. It is scattered with huge stunning churches and squares and uniformed schoolchildren. Outside Cuenca is the national park, Cajas. We took a day trip to the park which was not the strenuous hike we were going for, though it gave us an opportunity to see the unique terrain. We hiked past wild llamas and alpacas, around glacier lakes, and through its sparse tundra vegetation. The highlight of the trip was the walk through the paper tree forest. The forest seemed to appear out of nowhere on the tundra. Inside the forest, the tree branches become entangled in each other in such a way that only beams of sunlight were allowed through the branches. The sight is hard to describe, but Robby and I agreed it looked like something out of the Princess Bride. After a 20 minute walk through the forest, just as suddenly as we came upon the paper trees, we emerged back into the barren landscape.

9.) The last place we visited on our trip was Canoa, a fishing/surfing town on the north coast of Ecuador. To get to Canoa we had to take three buses, a ferry, and a taxi, and the journey took 12 hours. But boy was it worth it. We spent 4 nights there, reading on the beach, playing cards and backgammon. My favorite part about Canoa was the lunches of ceviche and pina coladas with our toes in the sand.

10.) On the last day of our trip, after an 8-hour bus ride from Canoa to Quito, Robby was standing on the corner trying to hail a cab around 5:00 PM when a man tried to grab my purse! My bag was slung across my body so he only managed to spin me around but I was shaken up and angry I didn't get a punch in. I was shocked at the audacity of the attempt, in plain view and in daylight. I was glad to fly out of Quito the next day.

And now this 1L is back in Austin! Classes started today and I got into the Capital Punishment course I had my heart set on. I think this semester will be tougher than last but I'm sure I'll still enjoy it just as much. It's great to be back in Texas, back with my friends, and back in BBQ country.

1L in Quito

Robby and I arrived in Quito last night for our three-week Ecuadorian adventure. Though our flight from Miami to Quito was an hour late we managed to arrive at the hostel before midnight. The first thing I noticed in Quito was that taxi drivers sparingly stop at red lights. Our driver flew from the airport to Travellers Inn, our home base for our two nights in Quito. Robby and I were tired from the travel and didn't mind the bumpy ride and disregard for traffic rules.

Surprisingly, we were up and showered by 7:30 this morning. We both noticed the sun had been up for some time before we roused and were shocked to find it was still so early. We were eager to explore Quito and were out the door by 8:30 after a homemade breakfast of fresh fruit, juice, yogurt, and eggs at our hostel. $20/night for a private room and a fresh breakfast is a pretty good deal. The fruit is the freshest I've ever had since I'm closest to the source as I have ever been.

Just flying into Quito brings me to the highest altitude I have ever been at in my life. I think my hike to Mt. Washington in New Hampshire set the previous record. There are mountains to the west of the city that you can see from any point in Quito; they seem to loom over the city as protector or predator, always engulfed in clouds. The weather in the city was clear and warm, though breezy and fresh due to the altitude. We walked from our location in the New Town of Quito to the touristy Old Town. I was curious whether I would be affected by the change in elevation and the only thing I noticed was my sinuses were congested and Robby had a bit less energy than usual. But we were captivated by this new place and persevered to finish the walking tour we had set out to begin. I've never been in a city like Quito, never been in a Spanish-speaking place, never been to a modern city with such integrated poverty. The beautiful plazas and stone streets were abound with business people and tourists, and young children offering to shine your shoes and old women selling lottery tickets. In my one-day estimation, Quito is a city that is trying very hard. The public parks and plazas are plentiful and very well groomed and clean. But we are warned to take taxis after dark and ATM's are protected by armed guards.

When we finished our walk around New Town and Old Town we went out for seafood at a place recommended by Lonely Planet, about 5 blocks from our hostel. The ceviche, garlic shrimp, and cervezas added up to $16 and were incredibly tasty.

Tomorrow we will either go to Cotopaxi, the local volcano, or check out the art museums in Quito. Tomorrow night we are taking an overnight bus to Canoa, a beach town on the West Coast of Ecuador.

My Spanish is rusty but not terrible. My proudest moment today was at the pharmacy buying deodorant when I said, "no necessito bolsa, gracias." I'll continue working on my conversational Spanish and will continue with updates on our journey.

Semester Wrap Up

Today I've been groveling around my apartment trying to convince myself that being hungover never felt so good. Though it feels great to have the first semester of 1L year over with, this in fact does nothing to lessen the hangover.

But last night was amazing. We finished our final exam at 5:30 and immediately headed to Sao Paulo's, a Brazilian restaurant close to school, for their margarita and queso (http://www.saopaulos.net) happy hour. About 20 of us gathered around tables pushed together and promised we wouldn't talk about law school. Amazingly we succeeded! Rather than bitch about future interests or debate affirmative action, we talked about our families, our boyfriends/girlfriends, our plans for winter vacation. We then went to a classmate's house party and onto a 1L party at Maggie Mae's (http://www.maggiemaesaustin.com/), a bar downtown where there was live band karaoke. A friend and I sang "Santeria" on stage but the best performance was by our classmate Joe for his rendition of the Beastie Boys "You've Got to Fight." The evening was such a welcome and celebratory end to an intense period.

Fully knowing what I cliche it is to say this, I feel unbelievably fortunate to be surrounded by the best classmates in the world. UT divides the 1L class into groups of 25 or so and our small group has really bonded. The support we give each other is invaluable and especially meaningful in this competitive setting. During finals we would check up on each other regularly, sharing notes, complaints, and even desperation. We all hugged before our property exam last week; anyone who knows me knows I love hugs so this was especially comforting.

When I moved here and didn't know anyone I told Robby that I was surprised what I missed most was being touched. I didn't just mean by him so I'll elaborate. When you're in a city full of strangers there aren't hugs, there are just handshakes or maybe a brushing of shoulders. But when you're surrounded by friends there are hugs, arms around each other's shoulders, guiding hands on each other's backs. This is a primordial comfort that I had never thought of until I was alone for the first time in my life.

So when we hugged before tests, danced the night away after our last final, and lounged around entangled in each other and our hangovers the next day I didn't feel alone. It's almost overwhelming to reflect on last semester already. The city, the school, the people... it's been an amazing four months. If my thoughts become more cogent I'll post them here but right now it's a bit of a haze.

Robby and I are headed to Ecuador for 2 1/2 weeks this break so ideally I'll have some "1L in Ecuador posts." I hope everyone has a great holiday and sending my love especially to my fellow 4C'ers. Can't wait to do it all again next semester.

Late night studying

me: 10th amendment is stupid

Jordan: totes

like if you care

put more words in it

me: totally

(from a 1:00 AM gchat conversation)