Friday, March 23, 2007

Pre-Orientation Orientation

I'm off to Manhattan this weekend for a big firm Orientation. Well actually, orientation takes place in May, so they've called this the "Pre-Orientation Weekend." It's basically a big excuse to fly everyone to New York for a couple nice dinners and a learn little more information about the summer internship program. I'm going because (1) my fellow UVA Law students are all going, (2) I've heard it's a fun weekend, and (3) it's a good opportunity to start getting to know a few people from the 100-person summer program. Plus, who can turn down nice dinners and a free cool hotel in New York?

TV update:
Top Design is getting really good. I'm glad Michael's gone. I really like Goil, but I think Andrea's going to win.
The Grease finale is this weekend. We obviously voted for Laura; and I'm surprised to say this, but we also voted for Max. I never saw it coming, but now I really like him. Plus, Austin is just creepy.

Okay, enough of that. I'm off!

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Wherein our hero turns 26

At 1:07am this morning, I officially entered the second quarter century of my time on this fine earth of ours. Many people don't make much of birthdays, but I think re-visiting the precise place in the universe where you were born is a cause for celebrating.

Let's examine my life in numbers:
  • 26 --> years I've been breathing through my lungs
  • 15,192,777,600 --> miles I've traveled around the sun
  • 819,936,000 --> seconds I've been alive
  • 10 --> length of my hair in feet if I had never cut it
  • 39,760 --> dreams I've had
  • 7 --> dreams I remember today
  • 3 --> countries I've visited
  • 33 --> states I've visited or driven through (not counting airports)
  • 6 --> songs I've written
  • 1,250 --> Sundays I've spent at Church
  • 5 --> schools I've attended
  • 20 --> years I've been a full-time student
  • 1,093,973,400 --> times my overworked heart has beaten
  • 3 --> freakin awesome siblings I have
  • 11 --> beautiful nieces and nephews I have
  • 409,968,000 --> breaths I've taken
  • 8 --> full-length concerts I've personally produced
  • 3 --> appearances I've made on TV
  • 4,500 --> gallons of water I've drunk
  • 0 --> fluid ounces of alcohol I've drunk
  • 6 --> real jobs I've had
  • 4 --> times I've gotten extremely ill
  • 0 --> bones I've broken
  • 200 --> "it's a boy" announcement cards my father had to re-print when he realized I wasn't born on March 21
  • 9 --> holes of golf I've played
  • 3 --> speeding tickets I've gotten
  • 0 --> times I've been arrested
  • 1 --> wife who woke up early this morning to get me Panera bagels
  • 117 --> blog posts I've written

One awesome life: priceless.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

One of those Sundays

Church today was like a big, tall glass of refreshing water. So refreshing.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

the MPRE wrap-up...

I took the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam this morning. I come from the entitled generation, so I'm used to being an ace on standardized tests. But this one wasn't as easy as I had hoped. But I still think I passed.

The majority of students take this test in the fall of their third year of law school (their 3L year). So why did I take it early? (1) I just wanted to get it out of the way. (2) Also, I'm in Professional Responsibility class right now, and preparing for this test was like an early final exam review.

The MPRE is graded on a curve. So the bad news is that my competition for the test is fellow second-years who are overachieving, overprepared (like me, I think). The good news is that my other competition is third-years who are taking the test a little late. The other good news is that I'm not competing against only fellow UVA Law students (like on my every semester final exams); instead, I'm competing against all students across the country. This, I think, helps my cause.

I'll find out my score in five weeks. As I said, it's based on a curve, with 50 being the lowest, 150 being the highest, and 100 being a median score. A passing score in New York, and I'm not kidding you, is 86. Eighty. Six.

In the end, although I didn't love my performance on the exam, and although I'm competing against a few other 2L gunners, I believe I did well enough to beat out the national average, or at least beat out the bottom 35th percentile.

Knock on wood.

Friday, March 09, 2007

I L-U-V the OBX

Woohooo!!! Rosie and I just got home from our week vacation in the Outer Banks. Yes, we realize this is totally childish and collegiate of us to take a week off for Spring Break, but we just had to. Soon we will be sucked into the whirlpool known as Real Life, and spring break will no longer exist to us. So we had to take the chance while we could.

We spent the week at a beach house in Waves, North Carolina, which we split with our friends the Rufeners and the Wardens. The Rufeners have two adorable kids and a dog, which made it feel perfectly family-ish, and the Wardens are tons of fun too, so it was just a blast. It was kind of like my family's yearly vacations to Monterey Bay, in Cali, in that we played tons of board games, had organized meal times, made a trip to the aquarium, had an ocean view out the living room window, found sand in the weirdest places, and were many miles away from civilization. It was not like my family's yearly vacations to the California beach, in that no one knew how to play cribbage or Rummikub. But don't worry, Browns - I taught them.


In all, it was a marvelous trip. For early March, the water was expectedly cold, but we got lucky on the weather - mostly in the 50s with lots of sun. Fun at the beach.


Yay for Spring Break! Boo for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam I have to take in the morning. The MPRE is required before you take the bar, so I thought I'd get it out of the way before my third year of law school hit. My vacation comes to grinding halt right now as I head back to my Bar/Bri study book.


Pictures to follow (of the beach trip, not of the exam).

Thursday, March 01, 2007

More press for symposium

The Law Weekly just published an article about our symposium:

Eight distinguished corporate law experts descended on Caplin Pavilion last Friday to participate in the Virginia Law & Business Review’s first annual symposium. The topic of the day was “Corporate Governance: The Impact of Institutional Investors.” The symposium began with ...[continue reading]