Yes, he spun the sugar and hand-made the chocolate roses.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/1/13/pudding-smolinsky-hathaway-role/

This weekend, I discovered “Jersey Shore” (and in all honesty, I can’t say that I wish I hadn’t), the supremely watchable reality TV phenomenon that is sort of like the antithesis of “The Hills” .  I watched a terrifying documentary about American food industries’ manipulation of our eating habits (“Food, Inc.”, highly recommended), and then proceeded to eat literal tons of Asian food and Sprinkles cupcakes.  I discovered my visceral fear of driving on LA freeways, on which crazy people weave dangerously between 7 lanes of traffic at around 90 mph without signaling.  I healed my gimp foot, which had been injured during one of the rare times throughout the year when I (attempt to) run.  I visited a Korean supermarket and a Japanese shopping complex and a Taiwanese bakery and a Vietnamese sandwich shop.  I consumed lots of Pinkberry frozen yogurt.  It’s remarkable to me to think that in the span of a few hours, you can go from sunshine and flip flops to job-searching and trudging through slush in knee-high boots…but such is life.

The real Orange County, as far as I can tell, is nothing if not well-manicured.  The cities are wealthy and well-planned.  My boyfriend has said that living here has turned him into somewhat of a socialist.  The Whole Foods parking lot is strung out with a speaker system, because apparently people can’t stand a 5-second, music-less walk from their BMW’s to the supermarket.  In half a year of living in Boston, I have not seen as many nice cars as I did today in the 5 minutes I spent in the parking lot in front of a Sprinkles cupcake store.  If this place is not the lap of suburban luxury, I don’t know what is.

Fortunately for you, I am too overfed on a diet of delicious Korean food and Sprinkles cupcakes to wax political right now.  Tomorrow, it’s back to Boston.  It will feel good to hop on the grimy Red Line to get home, and to see the city rising over the Charles River.  I love palm trees and wide open spaces and beautiful places, but there really is no place like home.

I wince whenever I see/hear an instance of the following grammatical transgression…

(dun dun dun)

the incorrect usage of “<Insert name> and I”, as in “Check out this picture of Britney and I!”

EHHH (buzzer sound), wrong!

People, the gratuitous overuse of the phrase “<Insert name> and I” does not magically/mathematically compensate for every incorrect usage of “<Insert name> and me”! The world doesn’t work that way!

I’m sorry for the outburst, but I have held it in for too long.

**

In other news, winter term is lovely.  The sun is out, and I can walk around in unseasonably warm 30-degree weather.  (Is the preceding sentence sad?) More details to follow.

Currently: in an irritable mood.  I’m annoyed by the fact that class ended two hours ago, and yet, here I am, sitting at a cafe table in the Hark, debating internally whether I should get that cup of coffee or not (on the one hand, I won’t fall asleep during my imminent one-on-one meeting with my student adviser; on the other hand, I really would like to take a nap before the cocktail party tonight), attempting to make some sense of the mess that is my “memo” on internet jurisdiction.  Ok, I lied about that last part.

Law school is series of humbling events.  I know nothing about everything.  Like, this morning, I got cold-called in class and was asked a question about a case about which I had absolutely no recollection at all.  Ongoing internal monologue: “F-my life.  I can’t even understand this question; how am I supposed to formulate a coherent answer? Oh, whatev’s, no one’s paying attention anyway.  Plus, this means I get a cookie!” On the plus side, I reward myself with a fattening, chocolately dessert after every cold-call.  (I live right outside of a specialty pie shop; attaining the dessert is never a problem.)  On the down side, it was kind of early in the morning to be so humbled.  But alas, such is the state of life.  Fortunately, I saved my ass by improvising a relatively coherent answer, for which I (think I) deserve two pats on the back.  (But let’s not make it the pat that broke the proverbial camel’s back; my poor back has suffered long enough under the strain of those red-bound law books.)

Not so long ago, school was easy-breezy.  Getting an A in college wasn’t terribly difficult, and getting anything below a B- was nigh impossible.  HLS does not assign grades.  We are on a pass-fail system.  And yet…”passing” has never seemed like such a lofty ambition.  Sometimes I think wistfully back to the days when I still felt relatively “smart” and wonder if it would be at all possible to get the other kids in my section to collude via inaction come finals week…but then I remind myself that Harvard is (basically) Sparta.  At this point, the dream ends and I usually take a nap.

Tonight: cocktail party, sponsored by the big baller private firms.  I should be going to “network” so that I can eventually secure a summer job, but let’s be real: you know I’m mostly going because the food is going to be damn good.

On the agenda for tonight: putting away my property textbook, picking up my baking pans.  Elyssa and I are making pumpkin cupcakes .

Remember MLA format? Take that system of citations and crank up its anal/compulsive element by about 100 levels, and you’ve got something akin to what I can only describe as the Type-A-ness embodied by The Bluebook.  Tonight, Bluebook and I are going to have a ball teaming up to salvage an article (on, of all things, a widow’s sepulchral rights?) for the Harvard Human Rights Journal.  Yes, I am on the staff of the HRJ, which means I am a lowly minion who must spend hours of my life making sure that footnotes comply with The Bluebook.  Oh the joy!