Breaking the Seventh Seal

Media Consumption: Looking for Alaska

2011-12-02T18:32:00.002-05:00

Comparisons are inevitable between John Green and Daniel Handler's first novels. While Handler's The Basic Eight used tropes from young adult fiction to transcend the genre, John Green stays true to form. That's not a fault of Looking for Alaska, however, as it is expressly written with high school students in mind (although I doubt a copy would make it past a secondary school librarian).

Still, this is an excellent entry into the increasingly popular genre of precociously-intelligent-and-sexual-children-attend-a-boarding-school. The unique format of the novel adds a lot to the experience and Alaska essentially ends as a completely different sort of novel than its beginning would imply. Do yourself a favor if you plan on reading this and don't pay too close attention to any of the images or words written on or around the book. Allow yourself to be surprised.

Finally, despite the cover art and the fact that Alaska is in the title, this book is not about Twilight (thank God).

View all my reviews

Happy Rabbit Rabbit Day!

2007-07-01T16:46:00.001-04:00

It's July, and that means just one more month until the next chapter of my Baltimore adventure begins! One more month until the majority of my time is spoken for! Any suggestions as to what I should do with myself in the meantime?

Gearing Up For the Best Election Ever

2007-06-28T09:28:00.000-04:00

Because I'm physically unable to keep myself from politicizing, I'd just like to say that it's official: I no longer like Mitt Romney. Like everyone, I was taken in by his square jaw and presidential hair, but how much political aplomb can you have if you think telling people about the time you tied your dog to the roof and drove for twelve hours is a good career move? When there are so many neat people throwing down in both the Republican and Democratic primaries it doesn't take much to turn me off. I'm kind of ashamed it took this lesson in animal cruelty to get me to see this guy for the cold-blooded hardliner he apparently is. Saying that we need to expand Guantanamo and advocating for torture maybe should have tipped me off rather than the fact that he isn't the world's best dog-owner. What can I say? I'm a sucker for cute furry mammals and suspected terrorists just don't do it for me.

But on to the real point of this post. Reading the article I linked to at the beginning of this post raises an interesting legal question. I'm going to assume that since he took this vacataion in 1983, the statute of limitations has come into effect for Romney's act of animal cruelty, but what if he took the vacation last summer? Would the state of Massachusetts be able to prosecute him due to his admission during an interview? What kind of defense would he be able to raise given that he laid out so many of the facts? If he later said that he made up the story to illustrate a point would that fly in court, or would the burden of proof shift to the defendent? What about the now famous quote from Clinton about experimenting from Marijuana (obviously, since he said he was in England during the time of experimentation it wasn't technically illegal, but it's something to think about)? Being a legal neophyte I cannot answer these questions now, but I welcome any readers who want to shed some light on the issue. Hopefully by the end of the summer I'll be able to answer myself.

Science Impeding Progress

2007-06-21T09:21:00.000-04:00

I take back everything good I said about the new findings regarding reprogramming skin cells to act like stem cells. How was I to know that something so revolutionary would be used as a justification to limit stem cell research? Color me dissapointed.

I was home sick from work yesterday, and as I sat on the couch with my leg elevated taking in as many fluids as possible I watched the hours of news covereage over the President's Veto of a Bill loosening restrictions on Federal funding of stem cell research. I found his justifications utterly frustrating. My fear is that reprogrammed pluripotent stem cells are going to become the new hydrogen fuel cell, which is to say, a distraction from how little headway we're making in meaningful areas of research. It was almost enough to make me consider voting for Clinton in the upcoming election. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that. Giuliani? Obama? I'm looking at you.

Entertaining or Tasteless: You Decide.

2007-06-19T16:17:00.000-04:00

Today's going to be a short post, because I want to let the following image speak for itself. Of course, in doing so I'm exposing you all to some mightily indecent language, and since you probably get enough of that as denizens of the internet I've taken the liberty of editing out the choicest words. I'm not one for censorship, but hey, kids could be reading this! I took this image from the pages of a comic book titled, The Punisher Presents: Barracuda #1 (of 6). The large man with the rippling biceps is Barracuda, the anti-hero of this particular strip.

You can bet I'll be talking more about this in the near future. For now I'm going to let this foment whatever it's going to foment among my readers.

Democritizing Livers

2007-06-18T07:19:00.000-04:00

It's always vaguely positive to hear about stem cells in the news, at least when their association with embryos isn't being protested. Now, a new process of reprogramming skin cells into stem cells "indistinguishable" from those found in embryos has been reproduced independentantly by three different labs. This is great news, because removing some of the perceived moral ambiguity of stem cells might help the rest of the United States get on board. In the year 2021, when I'm bidding on some new organs on ebay I don't want to have to pay shipping from China. Nope, only Made in America for my organ tissue replacement needs.

You may be wondering why I care. After all, I have a genetic disorder, so I should be more excited about retroviral treatment, right? I'm going to take this opportunity to issue a disclaimer. I freely admit that I am not a medical professional, and if I can be considered any kind of scientist, it's a social one. Therefore, I don't know adeno-associated viral vectors from Adam. What I do have is a working knowledge of statistics and a penchant for research, and I try to put that to liberal use. At this point, I'd have to say that I see gene-therapy as a long way off from curing hemophilia. I tried to stay optimistic about the whole thing, but then I found out that hemophilia has already been cured. This, from the bottom of a website hosted by the NIH:

"Liver transplantation does cure hemophilia, but carries its own risks. Further, if the patient already has hepatitis, the transplanted liver or liver cells are themselves subject to infection. Currently, the most likely route to a cure is thought to be through gene therapy."

I was surprised to be reading this; why does it seem like no one talks about the fact that hemophilia can be cured by liver transplant? Obviously, it would be a nightmarish operation for a surgeon to perform on someone with a bleeding disorder, but it's out there, and it's relatively low-tech. Even this little blurb dismisses the possiblity in favor of the future of gene-therapy. Other sites remain completely silent on the issue, saying only that there is "no known cure for hemophilia."

What can I say to "no known cure?" Well, they're doing it with dogs, so it's not complete science fiction. And where do stem cells come in? From what I gather, much of the difficulty with organ transplant (although, the most promising procedures at this point replace only about one-third of the liver) is rejection of the new tissue, and the inconvenience of the mecication one has to take in order to prevent that rejection. The scarcity of liver is another issue, compounded by the fact that no one is likely to fork a liver over to someone with Hep C (a sizable chunk of hemophiliacs), and that most hemophiliacs are not in danger of imminent death from hemophilia (if they were, it would be too late for a new liver).

I think I've offered enough exposition to present the conclusion and whole point of today's post: stem cells offer us the most likely option for growing livers to order. By "cloning," your sister's, parent's or child's liver you could decrease the risk for rejection. You'd have an organ with your name on it that you've waited a predictable amount of time to receive (rather than the indeterminate amount of time on an organ waiting list). With concurrent advances in the efficiency of clotting factor, major surgery might not be too far in the future for hemophiliacs around the world. And that's something to look forward to.

Law and Literature, Who Could Ask For Anything More?

2007-06-14T09:04:00.000-04:00

Today I continue with the Cardozo love. I've been reading some of his majority opinions and there's something about them that just energizes me. I feel priviliged to be reading them, I feel priviliged to be entering his field, priviliged to live in the country that he served for the entire duration of his short life. Is that too much? I kind of took the easy route reading Posner's relatively short biography (although it's more of a literary analysis of his career), but I think I'm going to have to pick up Kaufman's 744-page behemoth because of my budding obsession.

Reading his opinions makes me think that I haven't ventured too far from my English-major roots. Judges are writers, just incredibly powerful ones. You could say with certainty that Shakespeare changed the world by writing; we're all aware of his plays, they've become a part of our universal subconscious (helped along by the fact that he borrowed liberally from archetypes that were already well settled there). Judge Cardozo also changed the world by writing, except that most of us don't even know that our world's been changed. Even some of the judges that sat with Cardozo didn't know the extent to which he was rocking the legal world. When you can make such a signifcant difference with little more than a reversal of traditional word-order that's some serious writing ability. The lesson I'm taking away from this is that a pocket full of rhetoric will take you far.

Side-note: I'm doing much better taking a biographical approach to studying the law; it's taking me much longer to slog through all these black-letter-centric primers.

Thank You, Mr. Cardozo

2007-06-13T07:17:00.000-04:00

Reading through Posner's Cardozo: A Study in Reputation I came across a quote from Cardozo that really struck a cord with me. Say what you want about the guy's prose style (I'm personally quite fond of it), Cardozo had some incredibly insightful things to say. This from his seminal work The Nature of the Judicial Process:

"Every new case is an experiment."

Now, whenever someone gives me a funny look for going from psychology to law (which happens more often than you might think) I can skip the long explanation and quote my new partner in crime, here (partner in justice?). Reading through some of Cardozo's original writings reminds me why I enjoyed philosophy in the first place, why I thought I might graduate with a degree in philosophy. When confronted with such a well-stated, well-defined position, you can't help but flesh out your own in response. Reading through the blackletter law, I'm usually nodding along accepting everything at face value (much like you would reading a biology text, though law is much less of a science), but Cardozo's philosophy of law is at times brilliant and maddening and it's really helping to cast a light on my own jurisprudence. So thanks for the help, man.

Practice Makes Tired

2007-06-12T08:26:00.000-04:00

The only thing that keeps me going through these interminable night shifts in the lab is the thought that I'll be that much better prepared for the all-nighters I'll undoubtedly be pulling on a regular basis.

On a similar note, I've noticed that Law School has already been negatively effecting my social life. This does not bode well being that it's only June. Finals are still months away! And yet I've been shying away from making any kind of long-term plans or getting into anything resembling a commitment. Yesterday I was thinking about getting back into playing Go, but I immediately vetoed this figuring I shouldn't waste time that could be spent studying case briefs on abstract strategy games. Earlier in the summer I had accepted the fact that I wouldn't be able to participate in a Fall Musical, which is understandable: plays are a huge commitment. I think it's unhealthy, though, not to have time for a boardgame now and then. At least I'm going through this now so I have time to work through it and get to a more healthy place.

Have any other 0L's been facing this problem in the summer before classes? Has anyone actually in law school succeeded in being a part of non-law-school extra-curriculars? I've got to know!

Warning: Only Funny to UMD Law Students

2007-06-08T15:52:00.000-04:00

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a little getting-to-know-you package from UMD Law's alumni association; it's always good when they try to get their hooks into you early. However, I was puzzled by the accompanying T-shirt:

My initial reaction was, "Cool, T-shirt!" and I wore it with pride for a few days. I still wear it with pride, but now there's a bit of irony mixed in, because reactions garnered from my wearing of the shirt ranged from, "What?," to "Did you make that yourself?"

Personally, I think it's genius; "Maryland Law," is officially my new catchphrase.

Example(s):

"Hey, you did a great job cleaning those electrodes yesterday!"

"Maryland Law."

"When you make love to me it's like you're a machine spitting out pure, custom-designed pleasure straight into my amygdala."

"Maryland Law."

I think you get the idea. I hope to see everyone wearing their T-shirts around campus!

The Confidence that Comes From Reading Thousands of Pages: Priceless

2007-06-07T11:10:00.001-04:00

I'm currently prepping for the first year at UMD Law in a big way (at least as big a way as my current work schedule allows), and I thought it might be helpful to share my home-made 1L reading list. So without further ado, here is my summer short-stack:

How much would you pay for the opportunity to while away the long days of June, July and August with a yellow high-liter in your left-hand a blue one in your right and a pink one between your teeth? Five-hundred dollars? Six-hundred? Let's see how much I paid altogether, and why I thought it was worth it.

Planet Law School II, Atticus Falcon (Price: Free at Library): Besides boasting one of the best pseudonyms in history, Atticus Falcon has done a great job of scaring the hopes and dreams out of prospective law students. The dark picture he's painted of misanthropic professors doing their best to stifle the learning of idealistic students is really inspiring, if you're into that sort of thing. If your reaction to adversity is tears, I wouldn't recommend this book. However, if you're like me, you'll see this ferocious 800-page tome as a glove across the face. I couldn't rightly walk away from the challenge of Atticus Finch, and neither will you. Planet Law School also approaches a lot of practical matters like studying, test-taking and prep in a way you won't find in other, more popular books (Getting to Maybe, for instance). Even if all this book did was steer me towards Aspen's Examples and Explanations series, my time would not have been wasted.

Law 101: Everything You Need to Know About the American Legal System, Jay M. Feinman (Price: $18.48 new on Amazon.com): I wouldn't go so far as to agree with this book's overly ambitious title, but I do believe that it will teach you everything you need to know in order to be able to read other books that will teach you everything else you need to know (i.e. Aspen Primers). Law 101 was very readable and entertaining, and it contains a single chapter (written to mimic the socratic method) on every first year course we'll be taking. Get it.

The Law of Torts: Examples and Explanations, Civil Procedure: Examples and Explanations, Joseph W. Glannon (Price: $9.41 and $5.44 on Half.com): If you get these primers you will marvel at how quickly the law comes to you. I cannot say enough about how well these books are organized. They also quote liberally from the Restatements, and so do a good job of teaching you the blackletter law (which most law books and even law classes do not). I seperated these two from the other two in the series that I've purchased (I purchased one for every 1L class I'll be taking in the first semester), because Glannon is a particularly gifted writer when it comes to bestowing understanding on the uninitiated. I recommend all four, but consider these two essential.

Criminal Law: Examples and Explanations, John G. La Fond, Richard G. Singer (Price: $14.99 on Half.com): If I've heard any complaints about a book in the Aspen Primer series, it's been this one. I haven't started it yet, so I can't rightly say if it holds up to the genius of the first two, but I like the format so much I'm willing to give it a try. If anyone has a better recommendation for Crim Law primer, let me know,

Contracts: Examples and Explanations, Brian A. Blum (Price: $12.99): This appears to be very competently written, though I have yet to complete any chapters. I'll take this opportunity to advise that you buy all these primers used online, and not to worry about getting the most updated versions. Like most scholarly texts, new versions constantly come out with only minor revisions to justify squeezing the coin out of desperate students like us. The basic blackletter law behind these subjects has not changed much in the last decade.

Cardozo: A Study in Reputation, Richard A. Posner (Price: $15.20): As nice as it is to get a overview of the law, and to be handed court opinions distilled down to their historical significance, I thought it would be helpful to get a little in depth with at least one personality from the history of this country's judiciary. I chose Cardozo somewhat arbitrarily; when reading through Law 101 I found the few mentions of him interesting, and decided to become a minor expert on him. I suggest other prospective students do the same: pick a figure, any figure and familiarize yourself with his life, major decisions and significance. If Law School is anything like the lower levels of education it'll work out to our advantage. I remember when I was an English major I read everything by Dostoevsky and learned as much about him as possible, and because I knew so much about him I was able to find a way to tie him in to every paper and discussion (at least marginally). I think Cardozo is going to be my new Dosteovsky.

Alright, that brings my grand total of expenditures to... $76.51 I know some of you have spent much more than that on one textbook, so I don't think I've done too bad for myself. Those prices included shipping, and I probably could have saved some money by not buying new from Amazon.com if I wasn't in such a hurry to get them. If you're on a tighter budget, you might want to keep that in mind.

Obviously, this is a lot of reading, and I don't honestly think I'll be getting through it all. When school does start I'll post my progress to give a more realistic impression of how prepared I am.

Until then, happy studying!

Baltimore, You're Really Asking For It

2007-06-06T09:41:00.000-04:00

In her continuing effort to make me look like a fool, Baltimore continues to break records. As the article states, the most recent string of homicides makes Baltimore the 2nd most dangerous city in the nation, just behind Detroit. What I find even more troubling than the rising murder rate (which is rising all over the country, just not as fast as it is here) is the somewhat dismissive attitude of the BPD spokesman quoted in the Baltimore Sun yesterday:

"Baltimore is becoming an increasingly safer city for law-abiding citizens but has become an increasingly dangerous city for those that live outside the law," Jablow said. "We see it over and over with our homicide victims and suspects: They're people who've been arrested, five, 10, 15 times. We have to get these people off the streets for longer periods of time."

I find the distinction between "law-abiding," citizens and outsiders crass in light of the very circumstances this spokesman is supposed to be commenting on. Wasn't the cabdriver shot and killed yesterday a "law-abiding," citizen? How much of an outsider was the 4-year-old who was shot in the foot? I'm sure some of the thirteen juveniles killed this year in Baltimore some were involved in drug-trafficking, but I'm equally sure that some were innocent bystanders. Implied by Jablow's statement is the idea that if you are involved in a homicide you somehow deserve it, and this tradition of blaming the victim is as damaging to our city as gun violence.

I spent my undergraduate years studying psychology, focusing on the psychology of aggression and violence. As the first article states, two years of homicide rate hikes is not enough to establish a pattern. However, a recurring theme in my research is that outsiders, "those that live outside the law," those that do not necessarily enjoy the benefits society has promised them are the canaries of society as a whole. We would be remiss to ignore this phenomena, or to pretend that it has nothing to do with us.

Hemophilia: A Pedagogue's Dream Come True

2007-06-05T15:28:00.000-04:00

I could probably fill an entire blog with hemophilia references in pop-culture and the news, and someday I might just do that. Until then, I'm going to relay a story from my sister that really made my blood curdle. That is to say, it would have if it could.

My sister is going into her third year at the Coast Guard Academy. The Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard came to her school to give a lecture on leadership. His lecture was taken from lessons Colin Powell had synthesized into a slideshow that others could use. Here is the entire quote taken from Powell’s slideshow:

"Don't be buffaloed by experts and elite's. Experts often possess more data than judgement. Elite's can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world."

I'd like to note that I've kept the quote's original punctuation for the sake of realism. The rest of the story can best be told in my sister's own words:

When that final sentence was read out loud, the cadets around me immediately began to laugh. I heard someone say as they were gaffawing “ haha…hemophiliacs!” and another person say.. “that’s awesome!”. I was surprised when I first saw the quote come up on the screen because I rarely hear “hemophilia” mentioned outside our close-knit circle of friends and family. Looking at the laughing faces around me, I soon became angry because hemophiliacs are not weak and the ones I know are stronger than a lot of the complaining individuals around me. Some cadets complain a lot about our daily discomforts at the Academy, but I can never remember hearing someone who suffers from hemophilia complain. The injustice of the quote caused my eyes to swell immediately. When the lecture was over, I decided I needed to tell Master Chief how I felt. Would someone use cancer or other severe medical issues in an analogy knowing that so many people suffer it and die. I think that this quote passed under the radar because the general public knows little about hemophilia.

It took me a while to find the Master Chief and I was about to give up and walk in the barracks when he crossed right in front of my path. The Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard is a big deal, so I was nervous going up to him. I told him that I had a brother with hemophilia, recited the quote word for word, and told him that I was saddened the suffering of hemophiliacs was being used as a punch-line. The Coast Guard is a wonderful organization and he listened to me and told me he never saw it in that light and that he would change future slides. Please give credit to his compassion because that is a great attribute of the Coast Guard.

So that’s what happened! Hope it helps!

So thanks to my sister for having the courage to walk up to a ranking officer and express her disaproval. Additional thanks for sharing her story and allowing me to share it in turn. As she said, it speaks volumes for the Coast Guard that the Master Chief was willing to recognize the mistake and made an effort to change the presentation, but I find it troubling that it took a second-year cadet to notice what went unnoticed by the top brass of this country.

Edit: It has just come to my attention that you can actual view Colin Powell's talking points here. It's always nice when you don't have to take my word for it.

You Might Be a 0L If...

2007-06-04T14:03:00.000-04:00

As some of you may know, I work as a psychological research technician for the army at Walter Reed. Here, the concept of "good enough for government work," means extending the bare minimum amount of effort necessary to not draw attention to yourself. This is problematic when, for instance, the Principal Investigator doesn't feel the need to provide guidelines for scoring some psychological test. And so myself and another technician found ourselves scoring a test called the "Alternate Uses Task," which is basically the game from "Whose Line Is It Anyway," where you're given an item and have to come up with novel uses for it.

I may be going a bit too deeply into what I do to hold anyone's interest, but in order for both of us to score this test, we need to have an 80% concordance rate. After hours of arguing over what constituted a "novel use," or even a "use," in the first place we were getting nowhere. I found our debates were going somewhere however, and it occurred to me that what we were doing was basically the process by which laws were made and refined. I decided to type it up in precise language:

Preliminary Rules for Scoring the AUT

1). For uses that fall in the same narrow category (as judged by a reasonable scorer), the first shall be scored as a correct response, while all subsequent shall be scored as perseverations. Categories can be similar in terms of purpose, form or function.
- Examples: (sold for scrap [correct], traded in[perseveration]; cleaning under your fingernails [correct], picking your teeth[perseveration])
2). For the purposes of scoring, actions shall not be considered the same as uses in such cases as the objects themselves are the only subjects of the action. Such actions will be scored as non-uses.
- Examples: (cutting tape [correct], throwing away [non-use]; making a mobile [correct], throwing in the air [non-use])
3). Uses that fall in the same narrow category (as judged by a reasonable scorer) as the stated use shall be scored as non-uses. Categories can be similar in terms of purpose, form or function.
- Examples: (“a hubcap is used to cover a tire [stated use],” cover a spare [non-use], “a coathanger is used to hang cloths [stated use],” plant-hanger [non-use])
4). In such cases that the category of one use is subsumed by the category of one or more other uses, the first shall be scored as a correct response, while all subsequent shall be scored as perseverations.
- Examples: (weapon [correct], sword [perseveration]; held out to save the life of someone who is drowning [correct], extending one’s reach [perseveration])

Yes, I introduced the concept of the "reasonable scorer," to psychology, and I imagine things will never be the same. Of course, after all that effort, the rules I had made were just specific enough to confuse people and yet flexible enough to provide limitless opportunities for debate. I feel like I'm really making strides in my legal education.

We have yet to finish scoring the tests.

Warning: Only Funny to Law Students

2007-06-04T09:52:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I saw this when I was up and about over the weekend:

What does a lion have to do with the government's inherent ability to expropriate private property? I'll let you be the judge.

Baltimore, Look What You Made Me Do

2007-06-03T08:44:00.000-04:00

A few days after expressing my desire to dispel the myth that Baltimore was a post-apocalyptic Mad-Max deathtrap, we had to go and exceed last years murder rate. By this time last year there had been 105 homicides, while this year we're up to 116. City officials are so scared, they briefly considered making U.S. history, and not the good kind. Fortunately, our legislators had the good sense to outright reject the proposal, and I applaud them for avoiding what would have been a Constitutional substantive rights disaster... the media's favorite kind.

Does this mean I'm moving out of the city and going to school in North Dakota? No, I still maintain that Baltimore is safe if you know what you're doing. I love Baltimore, it's just not the most user-friendly city there ever was. There's a bit of a steep learning curve, and unfortunately you don't get a lot of opportunities to make mistakes. For those of you moving to Mobtown in the near future, I'd suggest palling up to someone who has lived her for awhile. Learn which neighborhoods are safe, and which neighborhoods are safe enough to travel through to get to the safe neighborhoods. As you can see from this 2007 murdermap, Baltimore has a definite clustering effect going on:

It makes the city look like a dartboard where whoever's tossing seems to be unable to hit the bullseye, doesn't it? I wonder why that is? Anyway, if you want to play with the murdermap yourself, you can check it out here. Until then, UMD Law class of 2010, check this map out; it's a zoomed in view of the area around our campus:

Are you feeling safe, yet? Until next time... stay to the right of MLK Blvd.

I'm nobody, who are you?

2007-06-02T08:08:00.000-04:00

In well-worn law school blog tradition, I'll be making a feeble attempt at anonymity. That may seem laughable to those readers who know me in real life, but just go along with it, will you? I apologize to anyone whose comments I had to delete because they contained personal information like my name, but by keeping my identity relatively hidden I'm supposed to be able to be a little more frank in my discussion of things without negative consequences. Such is the promise of the internet.

So no, my name is not really Antonius Block. That's a character from The Seventh Seal. Everything else on the website is true, however.

... there was silence in heaven for about half an hour

2007-06-01T22:34:00.000-04:00

It's not often I don't find what I'm looking for on the internet. I mean, that's kind of the beauty of the thing. Sure, in some cases it can be horrifying, like the fact that there's 608,000 pages about the "furry lifestyle," according to google, but usually it comes in handy. So what is one supposed to do when presented with an apparent lack of useful information about being a 0L at University of Maryland School of Law (save Heather's great blog), or a twenty-something living with a bleeding disorder? Why, start a blog of course! I struggle with the vanity of blogging (don't we all?), but I promise that once the hemophiliac-baltimore-lawyer experience has become more mainstream I'll retire my webpage promptly and pass the torch onto the next generation of issue-spotters who don't clot so good.

And with that rather lengthy introduction, here's a few of the things I'd like to accomplish with my informal journalistic efforts (in order of personal importance):

1). Connect With Others Like Me: I know you're out there. By "like me," I'm not necessarily referring to an obsession with police procedural dramas and a love of frozen ravioli, but perhaps you're attending or will attend UMD Law, maybe you are, take care of, or are related to someone with a bleeding disorder. Maybe you have a blog. Reach out.

2). Dispel Myths About Baltimore: The talk around the internet is that Baltimore is a rough town, and I'm not going to deny that completely, but when prospies visiting the school run screaming the other direction after seeing the city I feel like I've got to stand up for my home. I've been living in Baltimore for a little over a year now, and I'm moving to a new apartment also in the city proper come August, so I resent the idea that Baltimore is some kind of hellhole, or that the only parts worth visiting are the Inner Harbor, Little Italy and Power Plant Live(!). When you think Baltimore, I don't want you to flash to images of Mordor from the Lord of the Rings, eye of Sauron glaring, orcs hatching out of egg-sacs and whatnot. Being unwilling or unable to pay more than 500 dollars for an apartment, it's not like I'm living in some high-tower or anything: Baltimore is livable, and even enjoyable... at least when the sun's out.

3). Succeed: Succeed at Law School, succeed at staying healthy for as long as possible. I'm not going to accomplish that by sitting here and launching words out into the void of the internet, but I trust that you'll be able to help me. Would you believe UMD Law has no myspace group, no livejournal group? I did find a Facebook group, but it's little more than a name: no post or any other activity. Let's organize! Let's, by all means, do well.

And you know what? That's about all the reasons I can think of for now. I think three is enough; as School House Rock teaches us, it's a very special number.