4/24/2022

What have I been watching?: still Survivor forever smh

What have I been listening to?: songs from Rick and Morty lol

On Monday, I had my last ever law school class. All that is left to get through is a single exam (at least, in my case--some of my classmates have multiple). So I have kind of been leisurely studying a couple hours each day. My exam is the 29th, so it's a bit far out to be studying intensely for most of the day. I would burn out by the time I took the exam if I did that, I think. At the same time, I don't want to be unprepared considering that I have a lot of free time to study, so I'm just doing a bit each day.

The other day, I decided to go to the Flats to check out a place I've not been to before. It's called 27 Club. It is a combination coffee shop / bar. The draw of it is that it is owned by MGK. I was there for several hours studying, but I probably wouldn't go back to study again. It's a bit expensive, and the vibe isn't super conducive for studying. It's kind of dark, with a lot of ostentacious bright neon color decor, and a bit loud. It's more the kind of place people go to to take some pics for Instagram. I don't regret trying it out, though. I've been trying to hit some new / different spots during my last few weeks in Cleveland.

While I was in the area, I decided to reach out to my friend Katie (shout out to Katie) because she lives in the Flats. After she got off work, we had dinner at Collision Bend Brewery, which was within walking distance from 27 Club. It was lovely to see her and catch up. 

The next day I stopped by a coffee shop called Milk and Honey. Not gonna lie, my original draw to this place stemmed from seeing a video on TikTok about a lucky charms iced latter they had. They also have a cinnamon toast crunch version. I won't be here long because I have a facial scheduled this afternoon. 

Okay, I am coming back to this on 4/24. I had my first ever facial on Friday afternoon. I got it done at the Well House at Lamson Mansion, I think it's called. It was like a historic massive house converted into this spa business. It was quite fancy and a lovely atmosphere. Definitely would like to treat myself there again. I got a groupon for it, and it was a dermaplaning facial. Dermaplaning is basically them shaving your face to remove the dead skin and the hair, obviously. The esthetician showed me afterwards all the dead skin removed and piled up on her paper towel--quite satisfying. Then she did some extractions. I had heard of extractions and seen some videos on tiktok but had never had them done on myself. I had no idea that it was actually a kind of painful experience! They either use a tool with a metal loop to press very hard down around a pore to essentially squeeze out the icky stuff, or they literally dig into a pore with a sharp hook end of a metal tool to pull stuff out. Wow, my eyes were watering like crazy. The esthetician had to wipe away my tears every once in a while. But just like the dermaplaning, it's super satisfying.

After the scraping with a blade from the dermaplaning and the extractions, my skin was quite irritated and red. She applied an oat milk mask to calm it down a bit. Then my service included a neck and shoulder massage, which was lovely. The mask was then removed and various products were applied to my skin, and I was all set to go. I quite liked the experience! It isn't something I'd be eager to pay a lot for, and these kinds of things can be quite expensive, but using a groupon is such a good way to do it. The esthetician recommended that a chemical peel could be good for me, and I might make another appointment with her for that.

Later that day, I worked out with my friends Matt and Marielle. We did some good back and bicep work that I was happy with. I picked up veggie lo mein and garlic green beans afterwards and ate that at their place while we all watched the Kardashians. It was a great night.

Then Saturday was a big, fun day. My birthday was not technically Saturday, but we celebrated as if it were. I haven't really properly celebrated my birthday during law school so far because it always falls during final exams. Finally, though, I am at a place where, with just one exam and a job already set up, I didn't feel like I couldn't take a day for fun. I ran a bunch of errands earlier in the day--picked up a prescription from Walgreens, went to AutoZone so I could get a headlight replaced as well as my windshield wipers, got gas, and picked up a Drive Up order at Target. Then I played an hours' worth of tennis with Matt and Marielle. It was a 70 degree day and the courts were quite hot. Back home, I tidied up a bit and did dishes because we were going to have some folks over around 7. Clare brought home a Ben and Jerry's ice cream cake which we ate with our classmates and friends once folks came over.

Then most of us, but not all of us since some had to wake early to continue studying, headed over to Good Night John Boy around 9 to start dancing! It is my favorite place in Cleveland. I absolutely love disco and it's pretty much the only music I like to dance to. 

Ready in our disco fits

birthday me

We met our classmate Alexa at John Boy. She is in Law Review with me and we are very similar in the sense that we care a lot about our schoolwork and want to do well. She knows the DJ at John Boy and had him surprise me by announcing my birthday in between songs. It was so fun and so sweet of her to have him do that. I felt so special! We danced for pretty much three hours straight, eventually heading out a little after midnight.

It was a wonderful birthday despite the fact that it was not technically my birthday. But I had a great day and am so happy I could finally celebrate it properly. 

4/14/2022

 What have I been watching?: Survivor - David vs. Goliath

What have I been listening to?: Morbid: A True Crime Podcast

I am graduating from law school in 30 days. The time has gone fast, in hindsight, but it's also about damn time. I started law school in the fall of 2019. I completed only one full semester in-person before the pandemic struck and our second semester was converted to remote. Finally, we've been back in person, although it is still not entirely "normal," with lingering mask requirements for in-classroom. 

I worked so, so, so hard during 1L and felt so, so, so overwhelmed. I felt barely on top of things, constantly, despite putting in long days consistently. It definitely took time to get accustomed to reading cases, legal textbooks, etc. At first, you didn't exactly know what specifics you should be picking up on out of the great expanse of text we were assigned. So your brain tried to distill it all, tried to comprehend it all. I had thick binders for each class, full of comprehensive notes for every single case and every reading assigned. It all took forever, and was not conducive to a balanced lifestyle, but it got me good grades and helped me get a judicial internship for my first summer.

By 2L, I had finally gotten the groove of things and gotten accustomed to distilling this kind of material. But the added element of Law Review was thrown into the mix, and I all of a sudden had 20-30 hours a week of article review, citation editing, and source confirming on top of the same amount of schoolwork. On top of this, I had to write my Note through the Law Review to complete my writing requirement. The pandemic fucked up the summer associate market, and I got either rejected or ghosted by dozens of firms. Those who managed to secure summer associate positions walked away after that summer with a nice $20-30k in their pocket from 10-12 weeks of work. I got another unpaid judicial position and a part-time job at the school's law clinic for which I received a stipend of around $1200 I think it was.

This semester, my last semester of 3L, has been my most relaxed ever--which feels almost wrong and disconcerting at times. I have had only two classes: Evidence and Animal Law. Evidence is a beast of a class. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of Federal Rules of Evidence, exceptions to those rules, exemptions to those rules, etc. Animal Law was my "fun" class, and I just finished up my last class for it day before yesterday. Our final three classes comprised of mock proceedings in which myself and my other two classmates (tiny class) played either the prosecutor, the defense, or the judge. Most recently, the proceeding was an animal cruelty prosecution. I was assigned to serve as the defense for that proceeding. At first glance, the case did NOT look good for me. The defendant had a history of domestic violence, suspected of prior animal abuse, and served time for assault. However, as I continued reading through my materials to prepare for the proceeding, I realized that the bulk of the prosecution's information and material was going to constitute impermissible propensity evidence. Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, you can't just willy nilly point to a person's upbringing or past to say "look, they have been a violent sort of person in the past, so that means they were probably violent in this instance. It's obviously more complicated than that, and there are sometimes ways that you can manage to finesse that evidence in, but we didn't get into the weeds for purposes of this mock proceeding. I was also able to make several successful objections to hearsay. Ultimately, my "client" was found not guilty because I successfully convinced the judge that what the prosecution had been able to show was simply not enough.

This semester, I also completed an internship with the Humane Society of the United States, Animal Protection Litigation (APL). Being offered a law clerk position with them was such an honor and a privilege. I had applied for and interviewed for animal law positions the previous summer, but nothing panned out. I was made aware of this law clerk position with HSUS APL through an alum from my law school. I am so grateful for this because it was exactly what I hoped to do and ended up being even better than I anticipated.

The internship was fantastic, and I am glad that as a 3L with a lot of coursework and experience under my belt at that point, I felt actually competent to help with litigation. I don't think that in my previous internships I ever felt really like a burden or incompetent, but it was always a concern that I had. For this internship, I especially felt like I was really contributing and producing work on par with that of the attorneys. I knew what I had to do for my assignments, I knew where to find the information I needed, and I knew how to write it up and organize it. So I felt really confident with my work and my contributions. I assisted with research and memo writing on a ton of issues--zoning issues (nonconforming uses), municipal ordinances to ban the sale of fur products (and the concern of preemption by state law), deceptive trade practices and consumer protection issues, the responsibilities and ethical implications involved in consulting as an attorney for other organizations, etc. I had to complete a mid-semester review with a supervising attorney, and he said that all the attorneys I worked with gave glowing reviews of my research and writing abilities and that I was able to get them exactly the answers they were looking for. I'm so proud to hear things like that, especially for an organization like this that I admire and support, working on cases that matter for animals and for people trying to protect animals.

APL has a few different focused groups within it: Companion Animals, Wildlife, Farm Animals, and Legislative Drafting. Over the course of my 12 weeks with HSUS APL, I got to help out attorneys in all of the four groups. My attorney mentor for the semester was an attorney in the Farm Animals group, and she was great. I think we will keep in touch.

Right as my time was ending at HSUS APL, shit hit the fan. The US Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that HSUS APL has been litigating for some time. It's a challenge to a California law that mandated minimum standards of living for farmed animals. The challenge is brought by a pork producers association. The fact that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case means there will be a ton of work for HSUS APL to get through. 

Here's an article about the grant of certiorari: https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/566784554/scotus-should-protect-states-rights-and-uphold-prop-12-in-california

I would love to return to work for HSUS APL or a similar animal protection organization in the future. I think I would bring some good work to the table, and I am very motivated by these issues. 

I'll leave it at that for today--it's time for me to make a late dinner.

Cheers,

-Ginger

4/7/2022

 What have I been watching?: Survivor Season 36

On Saturday morning, I tested positive for Covid-19. It is my first time having Covid.

Friday was a very normal day. A full day, in fact. Towards the end of the day, well into the evening, Clare and I were at a friend's and I texted her "my throat feels a bit off and the inside of my ears hurt." So we skedaddled out of there, so I could get home and rest. She said that there was a flu going around, so I was hoping it was just that. 

I went straight to bed, but I recall waking up around 3 AM with terrible aches deep in my back and neck, and with chills. It was reminiscent of how I felt in the night after my second vaccination, I think it was. I shot Clare a text in the middle of the night saying I was feeling awful and would need her help in the morning. I laid all my extra pillows on top of me over my blankets for warmth and eventually managed to get back to sleep.

Early the next morning, I was practically comatose. Clare came in double-masked and helped me take a rapid test. 15 minutes later she said "sorry darling, you're positive." As far as I know, I had managed to evade Covid for 2 years up until this point. I certainly never got sick like this, so I don't think I had it and didn't know. It was my time. Clare had already had it twice by now. For a few hours I held onto an irrational hope that it was a false positive, and I'd planned to take another test to confirm, but considering how genuinely sick I was that didn't really make sense.

My symptoms for the next 72 hours or so were really rough. I was extremely fatigued and a bit cloudy at times. Totally zapped of energy. Rarely did I get up out of bed for much, but if I did, I sometimes just crawled across my room or walked very gingerly to the bathroom. I had terrible body aches, and would alternate between chills and sweating through my clothes and blankets. Anytime I fell asleep, I would wake up wet with sweat. I had a pounding headache and a cough. Every time I coughed, it was like I was knocking my brain against the front of my skull. My sleep schedule got very thrown off, and in turn so did my eating schedule. 

Luckily, I could still eat and rest on and off. Clare dropped food and drinks and things off at my door for me. I watched a ton of TV and read several books. I watched three seasons of Rick & Morty, and a Netflix docuseries about a vegan restaurant owner who plead guilty to embezzlement or some shit after her romantic partner swindled her out of over a million dollars from her restaurant. Then I began watching this Hulu miniseries based after a case we had discussed in Criminal Law, where this girl Michelle Carter encouraged her "boyfriend" repeatedly over text to end his life, and she was eventually convicted for manslaughter. The miniseries is still airing, so I haven't finished it.

Some friends have been very kind. Niko dropped off lunch for Clare and I on Sunday, I think it was, along with a few Gatorades. Then my friend Jilly was kind enough to drop off a Starbucks breakfast for me yesterday. 

I have spent almost the entirety of the last 6 days in my room. At first, for the first few days, I didn't really have a chance to feel bored or anything like that, because I was too busy being miserably sick and just trying to rest. Once I started feeling better, though, I started getting more restless and wishing I could get out. But alas.

Now that I'm doing a lot better, it has been kind of tough knowing what to do. My symptoms have improved remarkably fast. Most surprising is the extent to which my cough has disappeared--historically when I've had a cough from illness, they take forever to go away. The CDC has shortened the isolation period for folks, so I am technically due to break out of here. But I'm hesitant to go back to normal because I know the CDC shortened the isolation period for economical, rather than medical, reasons. It's so hard to know what to do in that regard.

On the whole, this could have been a lot worse. Luckily, I'm at a point in the semester where I could afford to just rest for a week. My internship finished on Friday, so I don't have to worry about doing work for that. I missed a week's worth of class, but at this point it really doesn't matter. I'm graduating in a month, and I committed to a post-grad job last summer. It's a privilege to be in the position to just rest as I need and not worry too much about the class I'm missing. 

For now, I'm just daydreaming about moving to Milwaukee and getting my new apartment set up. I signed a lease for a place in the Walker's Point neighborhood. I've never been in person, and have only "seen" the area via Google Earth. From what I've seen, it'll be a nice walkable area. It's not in the heart of downtown--it's about two miles from the courthouse. I can't wait to see my place in person. It's a bright, beautiful new construction building. I have a full one-bedroom with a large balcony! Huge beautiful windows + sliding glass balcony doors. I really wanted that outdoor space to sit and get fresh air each day (until it becomes a winter hellscape, anyways).

I'll leave it at that for now.