Even though I haven’t been keeping up with law:/dev/null like I should, I still stalk Facebook on a near-daily basis. So I logged in Saturday night when I got back from the law school, figuring I’d scan through my timeline to see what was going on in the world…

The image I saw at the top of my FB timeline on Saturday

…and at the top of the timeline saw a picture of myself staring back at me

One of the 1Ls here at NCCU Law went to UNC Chapel Hill for undergrad and saw the pic on the UNC Memes page that had cropped up on Facebook. The format is a blend of the Scumbag Steve meme paired with the traditional Advice Animals’ color wheel background.

At first I thought it was created by someone who didn’t like me from UNCASG, or maybe had an issue with my past trash-talking about UNCCH.¹

But I didn’t recognize any of the names at TheBlackFalcon.net (the folks behind the initial meme) and now it just looks like a random coincidence:  after going through our server logs, someone Google’d “ncsu hat” a couple days ago and apparently we show up on the first page of the results — the photo is from this entry back during N.C. State’s Champs Sports Bowl appearance 2L year, where I bought my red NCSU hat to replace the old “traditional” black one I’ve had since late 1999.

Coincidence or not, I’m honored to be the face of the opposition for all you UNCCH lovers out there. Even the bandwagon Walmart fans who comprise the majority of the university’s support base 

And to the folks at TheBlackFalcon.net: well played y’all, that made my weekend

1. An example from this football-related entry last year: “I have no doubt the University of Non-Compliance at Cheater Haven is a fine upstanding academic institution 6 out of 7 days of the week. But the rest of the time they’re typical blue-blood white-wine elitists who got where they are today courtesy of mommy’s and daddy’s trust fund. Oh, and the wealthy white alumni $$$ that came with excluding blacks for 160 years.”

I know I disappeared again, and school still sucks, and I can’t really write much on this entry because I’ve got a paper due in Professional Responsibility at 9am and another NC Distinctions test at noon (right before a presentation in Arbitration at 10am on Wednesday on a topic I haven’t even started researching yet ).

But I wanted to post something so y’all don’t think I’ve pulled the plug

And I also wanted to let y’all know that we filed Articles of Incorporation for the North Carolina Small Practice Incubator & Collaboration Environment earlier today!

In addition to class, over the past couple weeks I’ve been immersing myself in the world of business plans and revenue streams and figuring out how to create a 501(c)(3) and then get it financed and off the ground. I’ve managed to convince some heavy hitters to take the first few slots on the Board of Directors: Peter Romary over in Greenville (the same Peter Romary mentioned here and here), Donald Thompson Jr down in Raleigh (CEO at the tech company I interned for 2L year), and Prof Ks here at the law school (this guy).

Now while the AOI paperwork gets processed I’m shifting back to classes, then after knocking out a couple more papers I’m transitioning back to writing the corporate bylaws, a handful of policies on things the nonprofit is going to need to address (conflicts of interest, personnel, etc), and figuring out how we’re going to fund the thing.

The more I work on it, the more I’m convinced we can turn this into a statewide economic engine… and maybe even expand nationally. 

We’ll see what happens.

But first I have to graduate, so that’s it for tonight — good night folks!

Samson made a pillow out of his pillow...

He’s a pain in the butt at times, but I swear I’ve got one of the most adorable pets evah

Have a good night y’all!

Yes, that's a bunny made of 12-packs

At the end of the last entry I mentioned more blog entries coming soon as SBA winded down.

I apparently forgot about the fact I’m graduating in about a month and as a result have a metric ton of papers due in a matter of weeks

I'd have bought this in a heartbeat if it had a "."

So rather than a full entry, I thought I’d just share two things I happened to see tonight while I was getting some necessities¹ at Wal-mart and a new suit hanger at Bed Bath & Beyond.

And yes I realize the 2nd pic is really just a total coincidence… but it makes me want to create a T. line of various household goods one day

Enjoy — and have a great weekend, and a happy Easter on Sunday!

1. Translation: food

This past week has been our annual Law Week activities at the North Carolina Central University School of Law,¹  capped tonight with our annual Law Week Banquet where “The Big Five”² announce the winners of their respective competitions and the SBA elections, praise their outgoing executive boards, listen to the outgoing President give his remarks, and so on.

The banquet this year was notable from the start for completely and totally shattering every single attendance record in existence at the law school over its 73-year history

Best-attended banquet in 73 years!

Last semester my Vice President and I came up with some new ideas for improving the event,³ she then put together a stellar agenda/program for the event then she and her planning committee made things happen. With over 210+ people in attendance, we had about 70 or so more people than the previous banquet attendance record.

We were charging folks $20 apiece for tickets ($35 for alumni/faculty/staff) and still had to turn people away!

The student speakers ran a bit long so a good chunk of those 210+ were gone by the time I gave my (abbreviated) farewell address at the end of the night, but it didn’t matter because my night was made earlier that night…

…BECAUSE I FINALLY WON SOMETHING!

After 2.5 years, I finally got 1st place!

After coming in 3rd place my 1L year with my “Alice in Wonderland” closing, then clawing up to 2nd place last year despite a horrible ambulance-chaser-inspired fact pattern, I finally made it to the top of the dog pile in our 3L closing argument competition (even after screwing up a guy’s last name)!

And I didn’t just make it to the top in the trial advocacy stuff — I somehow also got the best oral advocate and best overall awards for our Fall moot court competition, named after Judge TP…

…yes, that’s the same guy who held me in contempt during my final trial in trial practice

I’m probably one of the few people who has honestly enjoyed his entire law school career, but after my grades last semester I was bitterly disappointed that I probably won’t be able to graduate with honors. As shallow as it probably sounds, coming in 1st in both of these competitions coupled with having an incredibly successful year at the helm of the SBA helps to lessen the sting

The dog’s pestering me to go outside so I’ll have to cut this entry here, but more to come at some point in the near-term future now that my SBA obligations are winding down. Have a great night y’all!

—===—

From the law:/dev/null competition-related archives:

• Going out on a W (04/01/12) [this post]
• Greetings from Washington (briefly)! (02/26/12)
• TOP 8!!! (02/18/12)
• NCCU Law 1Ls *sweep* Kilpatrick-Townsend competition!! (01/15/12)
• When polysyllabic surnames attack! (10/03/11) [video]
• Wrong man. Wrong place. Wrong time. (05/05/11) [video]
• Getting caught up (03/12/11)
• NCCU Law 1Ls take Silver (again) in K-S competition! (02/22/11)
• The #omgwut continues… (02/21/11)
• Top 10 works for me! (02/20/11)
• 2 out of 3 ain’t bad… (02/19/11)
• “It’s a Small World After All” (02/18/11)
• Game Time (02/17/11)
• TYLA! ::happy dance:: (11/09/10)
• Making lemons into lemonade (10/07/10) [video]
• Scaling the wall, redux (09/19/10)
• And litigators do this everyday?? (09/18/10)
• Alice in Wonderland (03/24/10) [video]
• NCCU Law 1Ls take Silver in K-S competition (01/17/10)
• SUCCESS!!!! (01/16/10)
• Success!! (Redux) (01/15/10)
• Success (01/14/10)
• Getting into competition mode (12/30/09)
• “Just because everyone else is doing it…” (11/23/09)

1. A crazy week indeed — my birthday on Monday, a rally that same day about the Trayvon Martin homicide attended by about 250 people from both the law school and undergrad, our annual 1L/2L/3L basketball tournament, nearly a dozen different student organization events including Speed Networking II and symposiums for both of our law reviews, our SBA and class elections on Thursday, and more stuff I’m probably forgetting…
2. The Student Bar Association and the 4 organizations who provide academic credit to their participants: our “regular” law review, our biotechnology and pharmaceutical law review, our Moot Court Board, and our Trial Advocacy Board.
3. Including bulk table sales for student organizations: selling 10 seats as a block to the organization itself, then letting the organization resell the tickets to their members at whatever price point they want and keeping whatever they can raise. Capitalism works y’all!

“I must be, like, a malfunction magnet.

Because your sh*t keeps malfuntioning around me.”

Some of you might recognize the quote.¹ I got to live it earlier today

After NC State‘s 3-point loss to Kansas on Friday night and some sleep + work + exploration yesterday, 雅雅 and I did some final roaming around of St. Louis before I headed home to Durham (I’m currently writing this from the massive Hartfield-Jackson Airport in ATL waiting for my connecting flight). I like checking out national monuments so I wanted to visit the Gateway Arch. And when I found out you can go inside to the top, naturally I wanted to do that too.

The experience got old after the first 2 hours…

If you’ve never visited the Arch, basically there are tiny orb-shaped trams that travel to the top every 10 minutes. You buy a ticket, climb down some stairs, enter the tram and take a roughly 4-minute ride to the top. You then get out, climb up some stairs, and walk into the archway itself where there are small angular windows you can peer out of to get a view of the neighboring area.

Panorama view from the west-facing side of the Gateway Arch

The view is cool — I took plenty of pictures for future panorama-making — but it’s also brief (and cramped). Most of the folks who take a tram up take the next tram down 10 minutes later, after jostling and pushing past each other for the length of the archway. Check out this blog entry from Quirky Travel Guy for a run-down of the experience.

And that jostle+push+ride-down-10-minutes-later was our plan. We made our way to the other side, “signed in” for the next tram ride down, directed to go down the stairs to our specific pod number, and waited…

…and waited…

…and waited…

…and waited…

…and waited some more.

After well over an hour went by, an announcement was made that the ground control folks downstairs had decided they wouldn’t be running any trams on either side of the Arch with no explanation as to why

We were all told to come back up the stairs to what was now an even more-crowded Archway with about 120 people stuffed into it. Then instructed by the Park Ranger to go to the other side of the Arch for the next tram on that side (which would have made us last in line and heading down 2-3 trams later). As we start jostling in that direction and people are clearly getting irate, we’re then told to turn around and go back to the side we were originally on. And told to “sign in” again. And sent back down the stairs for the next tram.

Two hours in the Arch, but another state crossed off the list!

Where we waited for another 45 minutes

Luckily I’m not claustrophobic, but standing awkwardly in a cramped stairwell for over two hours isn’t exactly what I envision doing when I think about visiting national monuments. Eventually a tram finally showed up, 雅雅 and I got back onto solid ground, and I decided I won’t be re-visiting the Gateway Arch any time soon

But at least I got to check off another state on my “Have to Visit All 50 Before I Die” list?

That’s it for tonight, about to board the flight for Durham.² Have a great night y’all!

—===—

From the law:/dev/null “Excellence in Government” archives:

• Trapped (03/25/12) [this post]
• F*cked by Government Incompetence (03/06/12)
• 222 years of inflation (08/06/10)
• Reason #1,516,398 why the federal government is broke (07/20/10)
• Dear NC DMV: #dobetter (07/18/10)
• Fabulous Fed Fun… (09/09/09)

1. From one of my Top 10 Favoritest Movies Evah. Yes, I’m a bit of a nerd — you should have noticed that from the title of the blog…
2. Where I’ll turn 31 years old at some point mid-flight…

Sorry I’ve been gone for another half a month, there’s just been SO MUCH going on. Talking with folks at Sallie Mae and working out a solution to the situation I mentioned a few weeks ago. My last Spring Break (ever!) that was almost entirely devoted to creating a business plan for NC SPICE. My alma mater making it to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2006, then advancing to the Sweet Sixteen for only the 2nd time since 1986.¹

The list goes on, and it’s long. And I’m somehow still somewhat afloat academically!

The view from the cheap seats at the Sweet Sixteen

With things going reasonably well — and not knowing for sure if/when NC State will advance in the NCAA Tournament again — I cashed in every single reward point I had on my American Express and booked a flight out to Missouri for the Sweet Sixteen. I got here on Friday just before heading to the game with 雅雅 (which we lost ) and then spent today (1) catching up on sleep, (2) grading moot court briefs for the 2Ls trying out for next year’s team, and (3) exploring parts of St. Louis starting with the City Museum.²

Tomorrow I’m planning to head over to the Gateway Arch, and might swing by a casino if time permits just to say I saw one

That’s it for tonight’s entry because it’s already late and I’ve still got more work to do. Just wanted to say I miss y’all and I miss following the blawgosphere, talking on Twitter, and all that intellectual stuff — hoping to pick up again some time soon!

Have a great rest of the weekend!

—===—

From the law:/dev/null travel-related archives:

• St. Louis, MO: Greetings from St. Louis! (03/24/12) [this post]
• Washington DC: Greetings from Washington (briefly)! (02/26/12)
• Memphis TN x2: TOP 8!!! (02/18/12)
• New Orleans LA: Greetings from New Orleans! (02/02/12)
• Charleston SC: Greetings from Charleston! (10/15/11)
• Toronto CN: Back in the USA! (08/07/11)
• Atlanta GA: Getting caught up (03/12/11)
• Williamsburg VA: Greetings from Williamsburg! (02/25/11)
• Orlando FL: Greetings from Orlando! (12/27/10)
• Virginia Beach VA: Snowmageddon 2010 (12/26/10)
• Memphis TN: Back in the Bull City (10/03/10)
• Wilmington NC x2: Greetings from Wilmington! (Again) (08/27/10)
• Outer Banks NC: Spontaneity FTW (07/05/10)
• Northeast NC: Enjoying a slow roll down NC186 (12/27/09)
• Boone NC: “Tendencies” (11/21/09)
• Asheville NC: Greetings from the Blue Ridge Parkway! (10/29/09)
• Wilmington NC: Greetings from Wilmington! (08/29/09)

1. I was 5 back then. For reference, I turn 31 on Monday…
2. AWESOME place! Though mostly designed for kids, it’s a serious workout for adults too.

Long-time readers of law:/dev/null know that Big Guv’mint and I aren’t exactly BFFs.  My love and support for education notwithstanding, I seem to be a magnet for every other buffoon making a living off the taxpayers’ dimes.

There was the whole conducting-a-levy-after-it-was-released debacle with the IRS during 1L year. The NC DMV conceding they improperly revoked my license the following summer.  My Post Office Box getting carpet-bombed by duplicate deferment notices a couple weeks after that.

I’ve even had the “joy” of a TSA crotch grab because apparently my cross necklace is terrorist-y…¹

In each of those cases, though, an apologist for Big Guv’mint could at least make a non-frivolous argument that I bore at least some responsibility for other’s failures. I could have paid my taxes as they were due instead of trying to get back into college, could have called the NC DMV instead of assuming they updated my address when they sent my new license to it, and could have remembered to take off my suicide bomber bling in the airport.

This isn’t one of those times.

Let’s begin at the beginning: today did not start off well.  My car wouldn’t start despite a fresh battery installed just last week (driving car maintenance costs during 3L year to the $2K mark) so I once again headed to the repair shop. The repair guys still didn’t know for sure what was wrong, but ~$515 worth of repairs later they assured me everything would work this time.

So now being flat broke and not knowing how April’s rent is going to get paid, I decided to bite the bullet and call Sallie Mae to apply for one of their bar prep study loans. I give the agent my information, have him submit the preliminary app… and get told I can’t be approved for a loan. Which was mighty odd when I’ve been busting my butt to get my credit into the “as good as you can get without having a mortgage” zone, on top of me just disclosing my entire financial life to the North Carolina Board of Law Examiners at the beginning of January.  If something was wrong, I should have known it.

A new addition to my credit report, courtesy of Big Guv'mint's incompetence

Panicked now that I have absolutely no clue how I’m going to cover rent for April — or May or June or July or August — I log onto the Equifax website to check my credit report.

And see this.

That reads “150 days past due”.

As of February 2012.

On a student loan issued in August 2011.

Now those of you who are good at math might notice there’s a 6-month gap between August to February. Roughly 180 days give or take. As few as 155 if you’re going from August 31st to February 1st. Meaning whatever the hell happened with this thing, I’ve supposedly been “delinquent” since the day it was issued. No in-school deferment. Not even a grace period. Nothing.

At this point I briefly stop being concerned about the Sallie Mae app and start being terrified about my bar application itself. The NCBLE likes getting everything about your life and I had just told them in January I was current on everything. Now I’m listed as 5 months late. A pretty big omission that can’t be good for the whole “character and fitness” thing.

Luckily I’m ever-so-slightly OCD when it comes to legal and financial documents, so I’ve got a copy of every single thing I sent to the State Bar. I pull it out, flip to one of the appendices — and sure enough, even the Federal Direct Loan website had me listed as being current on everything

Big Guv'mint says nothing is due... but I'm apparently 150 days late on it anyway

It’s a bit hard to see because this is a copy-of-a-copy, but you can clearly make out “Next Due Date: 07/14/2013″, ”Pay This Amount:  $0.00″, and the timestamp when it was printed out — 01/03/2012, when I would have been 120 days late according to the Department of Education’s report to the credit bureau.

Staring at physical evidence that something was/is amiss, I transition from being worried to being furious. I call the DOE’s 800-number and get to spend the next 30 minutes of my life talking with one of their agents.

He first tells me I owe ~$300ish dollars on March 14th (next week). He then tells me I’m on the verge of defaulting because I’m 150 days late and they report things to the credit bureaus at 90 days. Trying to contain my rage I politely reiterate that I’m still in school, don’t graduate until May, and am entitled by law to an in-school deferment.

Then I get put on hold

About 5 minutes later he gets back on the line, tells me he’s going to flag my account as being in forbearance so it doesn’t become even further past due, and will “submit some paperwork” to correct the deferment issue.

And then adds “There might be a little smudge on your credit report. If that becomes an issue, call back and we’ll try to fix it.”

(1) “If”?
(2) ”Call back”??
(3) “Try“???

I got off the phone before I said something I’d regret. Then filed a credit report dispute with Equifax and took the dog out so I could decompress a bit.

Since Big Guv’mint’s got sovereign immunity — and I don’t have a property interest in a prospective loan, or other damages to bring me under the Tort Claims Act — there’s not much I can do in terms of legal recourse. And at this point, thanks to the DOE, I now have an oncoming financial train wreck bearing down on me that has to take priority.

But damn this is ridiculous. Completely, totally, inexplicably ridiculous.

This wasn’t some loan issued before they nationalized the student loan industry, converting something from my private lender to my public one and something getting lost en route. It wasn’t the first public loan issued to me, where maybe someone somewhere at some point might have been unsure of how the process worked. No: it’s the last loan of at least 13 of them issued under the Direct Loan program.

And the best they can tell me is “If us screwing up becomes an issue for you and you can’t pay your bills as a result, call back to wait 30 minutes and then we’ll try to correct our failures.”

I pray I can stay healthy for awhile, because with my track record God only knows what’s going to happen when these clowns take over my healthcare system…

1. The full-body scanner showed I had nothing else on me except for the chain around my neck — why do you need to follow up with groping my genitals?

This is the first Saturday I’ve been home since January 28th and, aside from Samson seeming confused about why I’m still around, it’s actually felt great being able to sit around the apartment and catch up on the mundane parts of life like laundry and homework and such¹

It has also let me shift gears into “soon to be graduated” mode — just 70 days until graduation day! — and start wrapping up the last few projects I’ve got left before I have to venture back into the real world.

For better or worse, that includes winding down one of the most successful SBA terms in law school history.  Our elections interest meetings happened on Thursday and filing for office is open now, but before the new folks take over we’ve still got a second Speed Networking event coming up at the end of the month, a completely new format for our annual Law Week Banquet, the last two meetings of the Presidents’ Roundtable group we created back in August, and of course prepping for the actual transition itself.²

Jillian Mack '12 and Travis Ellis '13 with NCCU Law's 2nd consecutive Bronze Key Award

Speaking of SBA, one thing I wanted to mention a couple weeks ago but didn’t have a chance:  apparently NCCU Law has the most ABA members of any law school in the ABA-LSD’s Fourth Circuit

Yes, you read that correctly. Not the “biggest percent increase in membership” like we got last year in Williamsburg³ but the largest number of members overall.

Now under normal circumstances I probably wouldn’t make a big deal about it…

…but we’re one of the smaller law schools in the Fourth Circuit.

Consider as an example:  Charlotte Law, home of the ABA-LSD’s Fourth Circuit Governor, has a 1L class that alone is bigger than all of NCCU Law. And yet somehow we have more people in the ABA than they do.

It blows my mind. For srs.

This is also now the third time EIC has been recognized for her work as our ABA Representative! She was first highlighted as one of the ABA’s Top 9 reps nationwide back in August, and then recognized indirectly in the December 2011 issue of Student Lawyer magazine for the awesome Speed Networking event she envisioned and spearheaded.

Snippet from Student Lawyer magazine on NCCU Law's EIC-created Speed Networking event

Now she’s racked up another honor just two months later. With colleagues like that, no one should wonder why I love my job

I also have to recognize our 2L SBA rep (who I don’t have a nickname for yet) for his willingness to drive to Charlotte for the meeting while EIC and I were both tied up with TYLA obligations. I remember what it was like heading to the Williamsburg meeting last year, and being willing to give up a weekend for this stuff is a much-appreciated sacrifice.

It’s also the first time in NCCU Law history that we’ve had people at every single ABA meeting for an entire year:  the Fourth Circuit meeting in Williamsburg under last year’s SBA, the ABA Annual Meeting in Toronto, the ABA-LSD “Super Circuit” meeting down in Charleston, the ABA Midyear Meeting in New Orleans, and now this year’s Fourth Circuit meeting in Charlotte.

And keep in mind all of this year’s successes — not just the Bronze Key, but the Speed Networking event, the standing-room-only Access to Justice / Civil Gideon panel,⁴ the packed judicial clerkship forum, the record-setting mentor/mentee program our Vice President reorganized, the list goes on and on — all of it has been done despite a -40% cut to the SBA budget back at the very start of the fiscal year.

To get all this stuff done in a year is groundbreaking in its own right, but to do it on a shoestring budget where we had the least amount of SBA funding since George H.W. Bush was President?

There’s a reason I consider us the best SBA in the country.

Anyhow, enough of me crowing about my colleagues and all the successes they’ve achieved on behalf of the law school  I’m working on the second edition of this S.P.I.C.E. proposal and heading to bed soon thereafter.

Thanks for enduring this entry, and have a great night!

1. Including randomly reviewing law:/dev/null stats — turns out Sunday’s entry from Washington DC was our 500th post!
2. All while The Chief is getting ready to step down, a search for his successor is ongoing, and the state’s education-gutting General Assembly is coming back to town…
3. Something I had planned to write about until my Gmail got nuked…
4. Another EIC production!

Yes, I’m posting from the airport while waiting for a flight home

Life the past week has been crazy and taken its toll. Backtracking to the previous law:/dev/null entry, the TYLA quarterfinals at Memphis Law last week came to an ignominious end. The UGA team went in on Shutterbug with some thoroughly bizarre objections during our case in chief, and the (bankruptcy lawyer) judge actually sustained them  And since I’m a smidge overprotective of people, I was pissed they hounded her and was determined to get our evidence in come hell or high water — which I eventually did on cross-examination of their expert witness, but only after giving the (bankruptcy lawyer) judge five (5!) separate rules allowing it in and still having to go through three separate sets of questions the (bankruptcy lawyer) judge felt I needed to ask as foundation.

Soooo I lost points for my demeanor…¹

Bear in mind this was the same (bankruptcy lawyer) judge who decided to publicly berate Shutterbug for questioning the Defendant about a prior DUI… after the Defense opened the door on direct examination.² Needless to say we lost that round, and EIC was less-than-pleased with me. But at least NCCU Law set the stage for an even better performance next year!

The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging out with 雅雅, then afterwards I joined the team for drinks and relaxation. What happens in Memphis stays in Memphis of course; I’ll just say I had a blast and didn’t fall asleep until 4am³

Group photo of NCCU Law's Howard Moot Court Teams: Me, Diane Carter '13, Nnenna Olu '13, and Kelvin Jacobs '13

Once we were back in NC my focus shifted to moot court and the competition at Howard Law this weekend in Washington DC. Enduring two weeks of averaging 4.5 hours of sleep a night finally caught up to me, and by the time we got into Washington this past Thursday I had come down with a full-fledged cold. I was chugging Theraflu like it was Kool-Aid and popping Halls cough drops like Skittles. That in turn affected my oral argument performance, which I thought was utterly disastrous despite my coach and El Presidente (who’s getting his LLM at American Law) both insisting it went well. I’m proud one of our two teams made it to the quarter-finals there, my team just wasn’t one of them and I feel responsible for it

The highlight to the trip was getting a chance to catch up with two friends from my NC State days. On Friday I got food and a drink with Shirley, someone I first met all the way back in 2005 when I came back to NC State and became the Treasurer of my Hall Council. I’ve always been guaranteed to have an abnormally insightful discussion with that one, and Friday was no different. Then Saturday I joined a former SG colleague Mr. QC for a couple hours to learn about all the big-time stuff he’s doing in the nation’s capital.⁴ He’s currently with a federal agency and actively dabbling in city politics, and I fully expect him to be running something major by the time I’ve gotten my law license.

Cool+random mural on the side of a DC building Shirley and I passed, with Presidents going back to Eisenhower

It was truly awesome talking with them both, and really helped put me in a better mental frame of mind after my competition  I can’t tell you how truly blessed I feel having crossed paths with all these really amazing folks. It gives me the cliché warm fuzzies inside…

Which brings me to today, sitting here about to board a flight back to the Bull City. I’m way behind on academic work — and made the mistake of signing up for 3 separate classes that have weekly assignments, so my grades are pretty much shot for the semester already — but fortunately will not be traveling anymore until after the bar exam, so I can go back to a somewhat normal life. Obviously I’m ready to be home and get things back the way they should be!

And, God willing, including a few more blog entries too

That’s it from me, about to go board — have a great day y’all, and a great week ahead!

—===—

From the law:/dev/null travel-related archives:

• Washington DC: Greetings from Washington (briefly)! (02/26/12) [this post]
• Memphis TN x2: TOP 8!!! (02/18/12)
• New Orleans LA: Greetings from New Orleans! (02/02/12)
• Charleston SC: Greetings from Charleston! (10/15/11)
• Toronto CN: Back in the USA! (08/07/11)
• Atlanta GA: Getting caught up (03/12/11)
• Williamsburg VA: Greetings from Williamsburg! (02/25/11)
• Orlando FL: Greetings from Orlando! (12/27/10)
• Virginia Beach VA: Snowmageddon 2010 (12/26/10)
• Memphis TN: Back in the Bull City (10/03/10)
• Wilmington NC x2: Greetings from Wilmington! (Again) (08/27/10)
• Outer Banks NC: Spontaneity FTW (07/05/10)
• Northeast NC: Enjoying a slow roll down NC186 (12/27/09)
• Boone NC: “Tendencies” (11/21/09)
• Asheville NC: Greetings from the Blue Ridge Parkway! (10/29/09)
• Wilmington NC: Greetings from Wilmington! (08/29/09)

1. Even though one of the jurors (who actually does litigation) described the cross-x and closing arguments as the “highlight” of my performance.
2. Our coach went up to the (bankruptcy lawyer) judge after the competition to ask wtf she was thinking, and she claimed to have never heard of the phrase “opening the door” or understanding what it meant
3. Before having to wake up at 6am to get to the airport
4. His nickname for him here comes from the very first day we met, when he walked into my office when I was Student Senate President and told me “Charlotte does this, you need to get Raleigh to do it too” — a poor strategic choice, for those law:/dev/null readers who aren’t familiar with the hostility between North Carolina’s two largest cities