April 21, 2005
blue devil blue shields
i went down to durham for part of my spring break. i wasn't too enthused about duke, but i figured that visiting the law school would be a good excuse to use to hang out with my cousin, who was about to get married.
coincidentally, i checked the duke admitted student board before i flew down there. someone from my university had posted a message, saying that she was visiting on the same weekend as i was. i looked up her netid: she was the girlfriend of a friend of mine... we'll call him chris.
so on a monday, i was at duke. after i sat in on chemerinsky's con law course and went on a campus tour, i called chris to check out his itinerary. he said that, first, his girlfriend was going to meet with dean shields. then, they were going to tour the campus.
i thought, wait a second! i'm important, too! why aren't i meeting with dean shields?! so i went to the admissions office and spoke with the receptionist. she said she would see about fitting me in.
i went to chemerinsky's moot of his supreme court argument. i went back to the admissions office. the receptionist said, sure, go ahead and meet with dean shields.
his appearance intimidates, a bit, but he was jovial, to be sure. he obviously didn't know a thing about me (of course i didn't expect him to, but the previous week zearfoss had impressed me by citing an award that i had received). then, out of nowhere, i launched into my epic multi-part question, asking, "what are the real differences between law schools, i mean, like, where should i be looking; how would you pick a law school; because when i think about it, i think any school in the top whatever really has the resources with which i can construct the career of my choice, right? because why would i pick a law school because of its nice people when there are nice people everywhere... is it just the weather that doesn't persist? i mean, if i took the student body of chicago and transplated it to durham, would there be the same number of supreme court clerks? no? yes? what does that mean? ucla georgetown clerkships..."
dean shields looked a bit caught off guard. then, composing himself, he started, "well, that's difficult to answer—" (later, chris's girlfriend would tell me that in their meeting, dean shields made a crack about how he was fed up with graduates from our shared undergraduate institution.)
he spoke for maybe five minutes—not finishing his train of thought—before his secretary came in. he was late for his meeting with the dean. he apologized, straightened his slacks, and left.
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¡viva colombia!
i forgot to relate the story of my fateful meeting with mr. todd rothman, assistant director of admissions at columbia law school. it all started on a sunny day in durham...
i was flying back into new york city the next day, so i figured that i would call nyu and columbia to see if it would be helpful for me to come by and chat. nyu said, no, please don't come by, but if you do, feel free to help yourself to a self-guided tour. columbia said, sure, drop by, and we can arrange someone to chat with you (to be fair, a waitlist decision had been rendered on my columbia application while i was still pending at nyu; i would later get rejected).
i showed up on campus an hour early, luggage in tow, as always. i called euphrates to go over some aspects of columbia that i could talk about. then, i got lost, asked euphrates where the admissions office was, couldn't find it, called him again to see if he was sure, and then i found it.
i walked into the office, and the receptionist was kind enough to listen to my story and asked me to sit out in the hallway. (during our conversation, he asked me to hold on while he took a phone call, which was from a perspective student. i heard him irritatingly say, "sorry, i can't give you your status over the phone", like he had said that very same thing over two-hundred times that day. i realized then that i was that kid, except in real life.)
after a short wait, a chipper fellow named todd greeted me. i shook his hand and introduced myself. he showed me to his office, opened the door, and then pointed for me to sit in a chair which sat a few feet back from his desk. he then sat several feet back from his own desk, creating an effect comparable to eating dinner during the middle ages.
i stared at him expecting him to say something. he stared at me, expecting me to say something. he crossed his legs. i coughed.
fifteen, long seconds of staring directly at each other passed before i chimed in with, "so... i'm really interested in columbia."
we chatted for a bit about columbia. i expressed my continued interest. he asked if i had any questions. i said, no, not really; then i asked, self-importantly, do you have any questions for me? he surpressed a snicker and then politely said that he had no idea who i was.
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April 20, 2005
i look like tom cruise on vanilla sky
michigan law put up pictures* from its admitted students weekend. of course, i am far too hideous to be included in the photo gallery, but i know someone who isn't...
*password required
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April 14, 2005
when it rains, some people use umbrellas; i use my big head
at georgetown's open house, they gave away little gift bags. i arrived late, so i went upstairs to get mine straight from some assistant director of admissions (or something) lady. when i looked inside of the bag, there was a swank georgetown law cap. finally, i said, not something completely useless like a mug. she laughed as i opened the box at the bottom of the bag: a georgetown mug.
after i arrived back home, i excitedly tried on my new piece of headgear. unfortunately, the cap was too small to fit my big head. i tossed it into the pile with the michigan bookmark and the duke lens cloth.
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April 11, 2005
michigan admitted students weekend pt 8
the faculty panel at 2:30 disappointed, a bit. i sat there, white knuckled, waiting for don herzog to say "fabulous" so that i could break out in applause. unfortunately, he ignored his friends and supporters by limiting himself to only a few words during the entire discussion.
the panelists were supposed to only talk for about four minutes each, but it seemed like they all just went on forever. in the end, there wasn't even enough time to answer all of the questions from the audience. i mean, we got all of this about how the professors are accessible and personable, but then they just drown us out with their yadda yadda yadda.
prof. bridget mccormack sat on the faculty panel. i recognized her from hot professor contests on xoxo. from a distance, she impressed with her regal manner and convincing rhetoric. in the hallway afterwards, i would ask her to sign my chest using only her fingernails. i've been picking at the bloody scabs ever since!
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April 08, 2005
michigan admitted students weekend pt 7
adverseeffect writes:
btw, finish your michigan posts. i have yet to see a post regarding my stunning beauty and i really think all 3 of your readers (me and brian included) need to know about that.
first off... 3 readers?! you gotta be kidding me. foxes maintains a huge legion of fans (look below for one of the more famous ones, mr. queer eye). no no no, little missy, you've got it all wrong. but i'll let it slide, this time, because...
... it's true! adverseeffect does set her beauty on stun, when meeting with hot michigan admitted studs. i would say that she somewhat resembles christina aguilera in her goth phase. is that a compliment? sure! of course, it's just like me to stroke the asian half of her ego.
we all got up early at the ungodly hour of 7am and... ok this is getting way too boring. i will point out a few more things that i still can even remember, and that'll be that.
first off, the box lunch on the ann arbor bus tour tasted delicious. after the tour, a few other students said, "wasn't that lunch delicious?" a week later, at a georgetown law event, i happened to spot a student from the michigan weekend. i sat next to her and chatted her up. georgetown, in fact, had given us box lunches as well. the girl turns to me, swallows her food, then says, "wasn't that michigan box lunch delicious?"
oh yeah, and prof. sherman clark's mock class impressed. nothing more to say about him except that he's a stud like whoa.
the actual class, on the other hand, wasn't quite as convincing. i fell asleep, to be sure, but i was also pretty tired. a few prospective students did point out that the professor—prof. joan larsen—did not call on the female students as frequently as the male students. (i personally can't verify/deny this, because, i was, asleep.) later, i would meet one of the brave female students that did speak out in class while i was awake. she turned out to be the girlfriend of j., proprietor of the visible hand—quite the lucky man. she said that prof. larsen was calling on people who typically speak out in class, which, i guess, consists mostly of dopey guys. but, i really wouldn't know. i put my head back down and drifted off into la la land.
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March 29, 2005
michigan admitted students weekend pt 6
you remind me of my jeep. (photo: adverse effect)
the six of us went out after that. we walked around downtown until we ended up at a joint called the full moon. it was pretty packed. i tried to order food. no dice. later, i see people eating. i nearly cry.
we had a merry time chatting and drinking and whatever else. it seemed like a decent scene. afterwards, we satiated my hunger at potbelly. adverse effect took off her boots and started walking around in her striped socks. you can't do that in nyc. oh yeah, and i felt like a million bucks.
we walked through the law quad at around midnight and the snow was falling and it did look picturesque. i was reminded of my sophomore year when i walked through my school's gothic arts quad in the beginning of december on the way to my digital music showcase with euphrates and diseasepal. the snow was falling lightly then, too, and i turned to them, and i said, this is what i dreamed of.
throughout the weekend, some of the students did chatter about the actual influence (if any) that the magnificence of the law quad had on life at the university of michigan law school. when diseasepal came over to visit, he noticed that i bought a copy of a book about the michigan law quad (i told him that i wanted to read about the history; i actually only looked at the pictures). when i told him that one of michigan's strengths was its gorgeous law quad, he laughed and said, "it's just like [our shared undergraduate institution]"—which, he meant as a slight. more or less, he considered the aesthetic beauty of the buildings to be something that i had already experienced and that i should be moving onto bigger and more important things come law school time.
my favorite part of old buildings is just the idea of ghosts. i think there's a more palpable sense that great minds existed here in the very same physical space, grappling with many of the same mental difficulties. i feel as if the regality of the surroundings somehow compacts the seperating temporal dimension between the past and the present. and where could this more purposefully exist than at a law school? in the words of chinese sociologist fei xiaotang, "ghosts symbolize belief in and reverence for the accumulated past."
a personal favorite of mine is a bench on my alma mater's campus with the following inscription:
To those who shall sit here rejoicing
To those who shall sit here mourning
Sympathy and greeting
So have we done in our time
i walked back to the executive residence, caught up on tournament action, and then fell asleep.
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michigan admitted students weekend pt 5
after dinner, a michigan student who sat at our table guided josh, brad, and i to the student funded fellowship auction. the idea moderately intrigued me, so we went, expecting fun fun fun in the sun.
i munch on some appetizers and then we're all standing around before kat shows up. she asks, "aren't you guys admitted students?" then makes mention of the fact that she noticed my hair. we find seats and prepare ourselves for the auction.
kat tells me that she studied government and econ. i ask her if she was interested in the quantitative side of econ; she said no. i say, how can you study econ without knowing anything about where the numbers come from. she gave some explanation. i make mention of this conversation because, for once in my life, i noticed that i was being obnoxious, so i stopped asking questions. truly a landmark event. kat was nice and fun and rolled with us the rest of the weekend.
the auction started, but unfortunately, i could not hear a bloody thing. i don't know if it's exactly fair (because the room was filled with all kinds of people, michigan law students and non-students alike), but the fact that not many people would shut up made a bad impression on me. prof. sherman clark was losing his voice up there and even called the people out for being rude for talking while the event was going on, but they kept on jabbering, probably because they couldn't hear him. i turned around in my chair once just to look around and see what was going on, but i made eye contact with a girl who thought i was giving her one of those "why don't you shut up" looks so she gave me a "how dare you give me a why don't you shut up look" looks and i cowered away in shameful defeat.
the auction began getting seriously boring. fortunately, gotham called me, so i got up and met with him and adverse effect. we made each others' acquaintance. then, gotham says, "your head isn't that big."
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March 28, 2005
michigan admitted students weekend pt 4
tour me, love me, never leave me. (photo: adverse effect)
up next was the student panel (bored yet?). they seemed to get a good spattering of people up there. my personal favorite speaker was 2L mark (i think) who now appears on the cover of michigan's latest mailing on public service (again fooling me into thinking i got the good news from nyu; okay, okay, you got me!).
1L monica faced a familiar dilemma when making her law school choice: it came down to michigan versus texas. unfortunately, none of her considerations are my own, so i will have to solider own without her help. sorry, monica.
the law school tour came next. (as a sidenote, i was in the black group which, quite unfortunately, was called on last. i believe my tour guide was this guy.)
by this point, josh and i had already meandered through the law quad's dark hallways, so the tour was more or less a repeat. tour guide ming tried his best to entertain, but i don't really think he had much to work with. as the group walked outside through the quad, of course, various male (seemingly drunken) law students shouted at us from their perch in the lawyers club. sorry fellas, i don't think the girls were impressed.
(in the interest of full disclosure, i used to open my window and yell at prospective student tours but that was like six years ago when i did a summer study at carnegie mellon and i was around fifteen. of course, the other difference is that the ladies were impressed, naturally.)
an amusing part of the tour was when ming took us into a room with a tiny computer lab where students without laptops worked. the few students that were there looked so lonely that i just wanted to take them all into my arms and give them a big hug. unfortunately, i was also somewhat creeped out by their solitude, an opposing force that allowed me to leave the room without incident.
i would like to stop here and point out that one of the admitted students in my tour group had "murfdawg" put on his nametag. i only found two occasions important enough to send euphrates a text message: 1. when i noticed that the guy in my tour group wearing the green shirt with "marijuana" written in giant letters on the front also had "murfdawg" put on his nametag and 2. from the student funded fellowship auction when i noticed that sarah zearfoss is married to (or at least, has children with) an asian dude. a fun gal, and, with great taste! sarah zearfoss: the perfect woman?
upon our return to the lawyers club lounge, dinner was served. i overheard a current michigan student remark, "ooh! they brought out the good pizza." i have been noted to be an extremely picky eater, but i'll tell you straight up that the pizza tasted absolutely disgusting. when responding to queries involving the lawyers club food, most students said, "well it's better than most cafeteria food"—but coming from the finest campus dining program in the country, that statement meant little to me. however, my brief tasting of the pizza seriously soured me on the idea of living in the lawyers club. that is, until the next night's chicken. ooh, so tender! stay tuned!!
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michigan admitted students weekend pt 3
at around 4:30, sarah zearfoss came on to introduce dean caminker and kick off the weekend. i honestly don't remember much from caminker's talk, other than the fact that i thought he talked for about 5 minutes too long and that other students commented that they thought he looked like a surfer dude (i must say that he has aged quite gracefully).
oh yeah, i do remember laughing loudly in a completely inappropriate situation at something caminker said.
(of course, this reminds me of the time i was at a math conference and the speaker said something like—"i was told that i needed my advisor's approval but by the time i returned to his office he was dead"—at which point i started guffawing loudly because i thought it was a joke. he looked at me like i had just broken his little heart. i later learned that his sentence phrasings were a bit off to great comedic effect simply because his english wasn't too good, not because he was a joker. oops.)
anyway, i enjoyed the opening remarks even though i thought they went a bit overlong. exhibited, i thought, was a nice balance of showing versus telling. sure, there can be talk talk talk about michigan's collegial atmosphere and whatnot (and good god was there a lot of it), but it was actually on display here. zearfoss forgot the podium or something, and set up shop on top of a speaker; caminker gave her a good-natured ribbing. fast forward to friday when many of the panels became insufferable as there was a whole lot of telling, but not much more showing.
later, i would corner dean zearfoss to ask her about statements made by panelists that i thought indirectly implicated certain peer schools which i took to be somewhat smarmy (josh mentions this, too; scroll down to 2:30 Faculty Panel). statements like "less competitive" and "not monolithic" imply (in my mind, at least) comparisons with other schools instead of bolstering michigan law on its own merits. she answered my question with what i was pretty much looking for all along, which was a sincere expression of true love for the university of michigan law school.
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March 27, 2005
michigan admitted students weekend pt 2
ok first, the play by play. later, some color commentary. this could get boring, so loosen your belt and set your eyes on skim.
(i noticed after writing this that i phrased everything in this weird present tense. i left michigan, like, last week. duh.)
josh @ badglacier picks me up from the detroit airport at around noon. fortunately, he doesn't try to murder or kidnap me, despite my provocative dress (josh writes about the weekend, too). we make it to ann arbor by 1:30, then cruise/walk around until we bump into jess (some names changed).
it's st patricks day and michigan students (undergrads, mostly) are walking around in large groups, dressed in green, shouting out drunken catcalls. jess is a michigan undergrad/law school admit who stumbles into us and asks josh and i where the registration desk is. lost ourselves, jess takes it upon herself to navigate the labyrinthine hallways of the law quad until we make it to the lawyers club lounge. then, she disappears. we don't see her the rest of the weekend. was she an apparition or portent of things to come??
josh and i head to the executive residence where the law school has set us up for lodging. our accomodations exceed expectations, as we've both got individual rooms and televisions. oh so classy.
while leaving the executive residence to head back to the lc, we bump into brad, who rolls with us the rest of the weekend.
(amusing story involving brad, who attends a small liberal arts school: bumps into another prospective student, they exchange pleasantries, student says, "i go to berkeley, how about you?" brad names his small liberal arts college; berkeley guy asks, "is that accredited?")
we make it to the lc at around 4pm for the opening remarks. there are two other kids from texas sitting at our round table, one an undergrad at northwestern, the other a graduate of rice university. the girl who attends northwestern is from austin, and i ask her what high school she attended. when she names a private school, i snicker. later, i tell her that i think northwestern's evanston campus looks ugly. oops, was i the jerk?
(in my own defense, i am unfortunately often brusque in small-talk even though i am mostly a nice person. when i was a freshman, i went to my english professor's office hours to chat her up. she recently graduated with her phd from duke and was quite proud of it. i asked her, "is that good?")
as the festivities are about to kick off, i look around the lawyers club lounge—quite lovely, indeed. brad cackles, then points to a plaque on the wall whose header reads something like, "merit scholars". underneath, no names are written.
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michigan admitted students weekend pt 1
i will start off with an epic multi-part primer regarding michigan's admitted students weekend. i'd like to start off with a few opening remarks. first, the epigraph from the believer (a movie that caused my brain to explode):
I hate and I love
Who can tell me why?
-Gaius Valerius Catullus
this series of posts will not be in any order whatsoever. i will also not make any concerted efforts at coherence.
in his opening remarks, kicking off the weekend, dean caminker said not to put much stock into anonymous postings made on internet message boards. well i'm posting this anonymously, but a number of people have already met me in real life, and i have some vague reason to believe that michigan admissions people already know who i am, anyway. believe whatever you want.
regardless, i'm giving the straight dish from my point of view. so here goes...
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