accidental gift exchange

A lot of blog worthy stuff happened over Christmas break, but I've just been too busy/lazy to post them. This will be the first in a series.

Last time on Mozo...(pay careful attention to Accidental purchase #2)

For MJ's small group Christmas party, they had a white elephant gift exchange. Instead of buying gifts, however, everyone had to bring something they already owned. MJ decided to bring the DVD of Signs that she "accidentally" bought and didn't want. At the gift exchange, nobody knew who brought what. MJ ended up with a highly coveted gift and it got stolen, so she could either steal someone else's gift or pick an unopened one. Everyone tried to convince her to steal their gift, including the person who ended up with MJ's gift, the Signs DVD. MJ said, "No, I actually brought that DVD, so I don't want that." But as she glanced at the DVD, she noticed it said "The Village" on the cover instead of Signs. Realizing she wrapped the wrong DVD, she stole it back and ended up leaving the party with her own gift.

tell me how to get, how to get to law school

(watching Wheel of Fortune)

AO: "She has $4500. That's nothing. After taxes, that's only like $2000."
MK: "Yeah, that's nothing, might as well give it back."
KL: "My dad was on Wheel of Fortune. It was back when he was 21."
me: "What? Did he win?"
KL: "Yeah, he won $450 in cash, and valuable prizes."
AO: "So basically....nothing."

Bonus round:

_ _ _ _ E     _ N _     _ _ R _
Clue: People

MK: "Bernie and Ert!"

Student Body

I think only the people who have been through law school will fully appreciate this quote, but the rest of you can use your imagination.

"There's not a lot of visual stimulation in law school."
--my Property professor, right before he shows a video in class

would you like red wine with that?

For Super Tuesday, I organized an election result viewing party for APALSA. It was a joint event between APALSA (Asian), BALSA (Black), and SALSA (South Asian). SALSA said they would bring wine since they didn't have money to contribute towards food. BALSA said they would order pizza and we said we'd split the cost with them. I arrive 30 min early to help set up and the BALSA guy runs in, says, "We don't have enough money for Thai food; I'm going to McDonald's" and runs back out.

20 min later he arrives with 30 cheeseburgers, 30 wraps, and 15 apple pies. This is the first time I've had McDonald's with red wine.

Such is the law student's life: an impoverished student life existing hand-in-hand with the fanciest things in life.

first semester

I'm almost 1/6 of the way done with my J.D. After cramming for finals for almost a week, these are the valuable lessons I've learned:

If you can buy 4 piece chicken Mcnuggets for $1.50 and a 10 piece costs $4.29, it's cheaper to buy the 8 nuggets to get more for your money or buy 12 for only $0.20 more.

Two small fries for $1.00/ea gives your more than the medium fries for $1.99. The real question though, is if the large fries are 15% more than 4 small fries, b/c the large costs $4.29.

These are the lessons that will direct my choices for the rest of my life. Wow, good thing I went to a great university.

offering plates v offering bags

The worst designed offering baskets are the shallow ones with no handles. Why is this the worst design? It makes it easier to drop when you're passing it. And when you drop it, all the money falls out.

Contrast this with the offering bag with 2 handles. Easy to pass, check. Money doesn't fall out when you drop it, check.

Reedemer has obviously chosen poorly when buying offering baskets. And the poorness of the decision was revealed when my friend was passing the basket along to my other friend.....and they dropped it. The basket flipped over, spilling cash and envelopes onto the floor. After a moment of shock, they started picking up all the money and passed the basket along. I'm surprised none of us were frisked when we left at the end of the sermon.

We were contemplating that the only thing worse would be if you dropped the communion blood/juice when it's being passed around. Embarrassing, AND you're preventing others from taking communion.

red mango v pinkberry

They opened up a Red Mango _directly_ across the street from the Pinkberry. Since today was their grand opening, they gave away free small yogurts with 1 topping.

Verdict: the yogurt tastes better than Pinkberry. It's less sour and tastes creamier. Cost is the same. They have more choices of cereal toppings.

All in all, the difference all comes down to personal preference. It was the only time I've ever seen an open Pinkberry without any customers.

Too bad we didn't get there earlier, too, cuz we could have got free $25 gift certificates.

pointless post

gmail lets you sign onto aim now.

You know you're cramming for finals when SOL means statute of limitations.

frolicking in the snow

Since I'm trying to maximize my study time for the next few weeks, I decided to goto Redeemer this morning, which has a shorter service than Vision. As we walked outside, there was a blanket of snow on the ground. This is the first time it has snowed since I moved to New York. At first I was dreading going out in the cold, but since one of my friends was excited, I had to admit it was kinda cool to see snow covered roofs and white powder on the ground. It's been a few years since I've been able to witness the first snow of winter.

After service, it was snowing, so we strolled through Central Park. A different friend said it was like walking through Narnia. We grabbed brunch and then headed back to school. This is when I started to notice the brown slush on the streets. And the huge puddles at every intersection. When we got back on the subway, I noticed the bottom edge of my pants were soaked.

This summarizes New York for me. In theory, it sounds cool. Even at first, you're excited and impressed, but then you start to see all the crappy little details and you start thinking maybe it's not as great as you thought it would be. NY is turning me into a pessimist.

overheard at my church

"Since we were the only two white people there, we eventually got introduced." --Asian girl giving testimony about time in Africa

"For 60 sec, time stood still." --Pastor

when it's REALLY hypothetical

"Let's suppose there are twenty top 10 law firms..."

--my civil procedure professor

wait, i know you, right?

Tonight, we met up with some med students at NYU. After dinner, we went to get dessert at Crumbs, a cupcake place. After we ordered, we sat down at a couple tables in the back of the store. We're all chatting and having a good time. There were still 2 guys and a girl in line. After a few minutes, they sat down, but they didn't order anything. They said they're still deciding what to get. The two guys get up and said they're ready to order. 10 minutes pass. Then they come back to the table with a cake and some candles stuck in it and start singing happy birthday to the girl. We just go with it and join in the singing. We assume the girl's birthday was either today or recently passed or will come up soon. After we're done singing and she blows out the candles, and all the applause dies down, she asks the guys if they're serious. They reply, yeah, what does she mean? She says her birthday is in JULY.

Mass confusion ensues.

Apparently the two guys thought the girl's birthday was today. They obviously were wrong.

How well do you know _your_ friends?

targeting the over 55 crowd

Stan: mom's on facebook
me: hahahh
me: how'd that happen
Stan: no idea

First gchat and now Facebook? It's official. My mom's cooler than all of you who aren't on Facebook. And the world is about to end.

what I learned in law school

I've been here for about a month and a half and this is what I've learned so far:

1) The red hand doesn't mean don't walk, it just means you have to dodge cars as you cross the street. It's like a difficulty setting on a video game. Hard or normal? Up to you.

2) When you checkout, sometimes a store will ask you if you want a bag or a handle. Always choose handle. If they have to ask, whatever you bought is too big to carry in a bag.

3) Downtown is not a location, it's a direction.

I've learned all these extremely valuable life lessons not from law school, but from the precious few hours I have to leave the law school. Which brings me to my last lesson.

4) Make it up. Get called on in class and didn't do the reading? Make up an answer. Get called on and did the reading but still don't know the answer? Make something up. Need to argue a point that you don't actually believe in? Who cares, just make something up. The profs have on more than one occasion told us they know we don't know the answer, they just want us to make it up as we go along.

I know you don't believe me. I bet you think I'm exaggerating. But it's true. Law school doesn't teach you about right or wrong. Law has nothing to do with right or wrong (shocking, I know). It's all about being able to persuade everyone else to believe you. In every single case we read about, it could go either way. It just depends on who the judges think are more persuasive, or which Supreme Court justice was able to persuade more of his peers to vote his/her way.

Seeing as how I'm a truth over happiness kind of guy and law school has nothing to do with truth, but a lot to do with happiness, I'm not sure how long I'll last.

chinatown v greyhound

I went to visit my brother and his wife in Boston this past weekend. For the longest time before leaving on this trip, I debated on whether to take the Chinatown bus, or the Greyhound.

	Chinatown Bus	Greyhound
Pros	cheap, fast (due to reckless speeds), flexible (there's a bus every hour, so you can just show up and buy a ticket)	You will probably survive the trip
Cons	tendency to flip over or catch on fire	more expensive ($25 v $15 one way)

I was traveling with MY, who is my sister-in-law's cousin, who usually takes the Chinatown bus. Even though she said "it's up to you", I knew what that really meant. I've had enough female friends to translate the words that come out of a girl's mouth. Last Friday, I got on the Chinatown bus.

The ride up there went without incident. Unless you count the person sitting in front of me who kept turning around to stare at us for who knows what reason. Because we were talking? Maybe if he wanted a silent ride he shouldn't have boarded a bus leaving from Chinatown.

On the way back, everything was going fine until all of a sudden, the person sitting directly across the aisle from us pulled out his DVD player. And hit play. With no headphones. And turned up the volume. I couldn't really tell what he was watching, I think it was some Chinese fashion show or something. But everyone on the bus could hear it. And everyone was pissed. He didn't get the hint when people started to give him dirty looks and pull out earplugs. Someone even asked him politely to turn the volume down. Eventually the person next to him offered to lend him a pair of headphones which amazingly he accepted.

While all this was going on, I was shocked at what was going on. Given, I'm an ABC, so I'm used to straddling two different cultures, but what would possess a person to do that? Usually I chalk it up to cultural differences. For example, people in Asia usually live in close proximity to each other (at least in the cities). So they can be forgiven if they crowd your personal space when they talk to you. I understand that. But playing a DVD out loud on a bus? If that's what everyone did in Asia, nobody would be able to hear anything! If the norm was everyone watched a movie on their portable DVD player while on bus rides, then everyone should have headphones, otherwise all the sound would mix together. Have you ever tried watching a movie while someone was talking to you? I have. The operative word here is "tried". So it just boggles the mind that someone would assume everyone would want to listen to his movie and he would lack the foresight to bring headphones.

(BTW, everything in law school is "somebody v somebody else". Thus, the title to this post. Yes, law school is making me less funny. Sad.)

27 million

Trade, a movie based on the article The Girls Next Door by Peter Landesman, opens this weekend.

Tonight, I heard Jin Chung, the Director of Intern and Fellows Progams at IJM, talk about human trafficking.

Slavery?? Sex trafficking?? There is an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today, which is MORE than the 10-12 million Africans shipped to the Americas back in the 16-19th centuries. WHAT?!

We gotta do something about this.

International Justice Mission

moon cake?

Happy Zhong Qiu Jie! (Mid-Autumn Moon Festival)

Unless you're sitting in the library during your 1L year, I guarantee you are having more fun than I am.

I probably won't get to eat any mooncake until this weekend, although I'm supposed to eat fried chicken tonight to celebrate Chuseok (the Korean version of this holiday).

nyers nicer than midwesterners?

BH and I were sitting in Fairway Market Cafe, waiting for SL. Out of the blue, the two ladies next to us leaned over and asked "We have half a bottle of Pinot Noir that we can't finish. Do you want it?"

I've never been given free wine by a random stranger before. Maybe NY isn't so bad after all.

reminder: i left LA for this

wake up.
go to class.
find food.
go to class.
take a nap.
find more food.
go to library.
study.
get kicked out of library because it's closing.
go to dorm.
study.
sleep.
repeat.

sigh

what i've been up to

Studying. And more studying. Oh yeah, I almost forgot.....studying.

Last night marked the end of my first week of classes. I slept 12+ hours.

Last night, I ate dinner with nobu and then we went to k-town (or k-street) for norebang (karaoke). To kill some time, we went into a Korean supermarket where I decided it would be a good idea to buy some frozen food even though I don't have any way to heat it up. At any rate, since neither of us read Korean or are well versed in the intricacies of distinguishing good Korean dumplings from bad ones, we resorted to The Wisdom of Crowds method (i.e. asking random Korean people which dumplings were good, analyzing the results and then purchasing each package to taste test and see if they were right). Actually, we just asked a few people and then I bought two of the suggested packages. But I have full faith that their recommendations are better than anything I could have decided on my own. And no, I didn't sing. I was too tired and went home. Remember the 12+ hours of sleep?

Tonight, I ate dinner with MY and ST, who took me to a Taiwanese place in Chinatown. We got there at 8:37pm. They closed at 9pm. At about 9:10, they started turning off the lights and the other people in the restaurant paid their bill and left. At around 9:15pm, we were the only ones still eating, every other chair had already been stacked on the tables and the floor had been mopped. Yeah, they're not subtle about wanting to go home. Nevertheless, we trudged forward and didn't leave until we had finished. Actually, they were very nice to us and told us to come back tomorrow.

Afterwards, we tried a new tea shop that opened up and got some boba. Since it was a new store, we chatted with the owner and the employees for a while before we left. Then we walked to ST's car, which took another 5 minutes. Only after getting in the car, did MY realize something was wrong.

"Hey, wait a minute! They didn't give me any boba! You heard me order right? I said I wanted boba! They asked if I wanted boba and I said yes!"

After this tirade, MY insisted on getting the boba she rightly deserved, so we swung back to the shop. She asked for the boba, and the employees, eager to please a new customer, quickly obliged, even asking if she wanted more ice. MY walked out with a new cup filled with tea, ice and boba. Moral of the story: finish drinking your tea before you go back and tell a new store they made a mistake so they will refill your drink. Thanks for the life lesson, MY.