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April 30th, 2009

Not-so-vague threats?

I need everyone in Minneapolis to chill. For the next two weeks, I need the chaos to stop. Pretty please? We have stray bullets, riots, and now not-so-vague threats? What the hey?

We received this email during our Criminal Law review session:

Students, Faculty and Staff:

The University will be closing three buildings on our West Bank campus due to a time-specific threat of violence obtained by law enforcement. Those buildings include the Carlson School of Management, Hanson Hall and the Hubert H. Humphrey Center. All classes and activities beginning at or after 3:45 are cancelled in those buildings and they will close at 4:30 p.m.

This was a very specific threat of violence targeted at these three buildings. We are erring on the side of caution by canceling classes and activities and closing the buildings. UMPD is actively investigating this threat.

The Humphrey Institute’s “Changing Competitive Position of Public Research Universities” lecture has been moved to 5 Blegen Hall.

The threat was specific enough that regular operations will resume on Friday morning.

I apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your cooperation.

UPDATE: Turns out it was a shooting threat:

The University of Minnesota closed three buildings on its West Bank campus this afternoon after a note was found saying that a shooting was planned this evening, prompting the cancellation of classes in those heavily populated buildings, school officials said. (read on)

October 8th, 2008

River Road Café

As if I needed yet another café to add to my 15-odd study places! A new Dunn Brothers store opened on campus. It’s called the “River Road Café”, and it’s part of a swank, newly renovated building.

The coolest thing about this place is the tables. They feature some of the pellets from the former mineral resources center.

August 2nd, 2008

Hello Minnesota

So I’m in Minneapolis now!

Packing was a less-than-graceful affair – I didn’t realize how many books I had until I filled three ginormous boxes with them.

The third box, of course, broke in my car, sending almost 100 books flying everywhere. Eh.

I had a layover in Atlanta. That airport is massive, but surprisingly clean…although I was shocked to see so many bars in the airport.

Well, so many bars, and so many people smoking (and drinking) at 10am. The layover was less than an hour so I had time to grab breakfast at Phillip’s Seafood, which was pretty empty. Yeah. I don’t go to an airport in the morning and think “CRABCAKES!” either. In the interest of dear Mr. Stomach, I had the eggs and cheddar.

There were so many cute Nordic-blond kids on the flight to Minneapolis. Well, I thought they were cute. Their grandma obviously didn’t share my opinion and opted for a few bloody-Marys, compliments of AirTran.

I got to Minneapolis, had a public transit/taxi adventure, and then met two of the (14?) housemates. After chucking my luggage in my room I roamed the neighborhood. I’m living in Dinkytown, which is the university neighborhood for the University of Minnesota.

UMiami doesn’t have an equivalent supporting neighborhood. Actually, walking around UMN makes me realize how a-typical UMiami really is. UMN dwarfs UMiami. UMN is also way nicer. Pictures!

More here.

I got my student ID, but couldn’t sign up for the gym.

Gym Lady: You’re not registered for any classes so you can’t get a gym membership.
Me: I’m a law student. They register us on the first day of orientation, the 27th.
Gym Lady: Then we can’t sign you up. Besides, we don’t prorate our summer membership so even if we did sign you up, you’d have to pay $80 for a 20-day membership.
Me: Erm. Where’s the closest Bally’s?

The next adventure of the day? Finding a grocery store!

July 1st, 2008

Verk it!

“He would need to do serious gymwork once he started his job, days away now. It was no good spending eight hours at the office, ten hours, then going straight home. He would need to burn things off, test his body, direct himself inward, working on his strength, stamina, agility, sanity. He would need an offsetting discipline, a form of controlled behavior, voluntary, that kept him from shambling into the house and hating everybody.” – Don DeLillo (from Falling Man)

My schedule has been (fairly) lawless this summer. The goal for July is to reign in my sleep schedule and step up my workouts.

Freshman year I was 160lbs and worked out religiously. I graduated at just over 200lbs and yeah, that’s not a good look. I can’t make up for three years of neglect in one month, but I can start in the right direction.

The plan is to move from treadmilling to outdoor running. I want to improve my endurance without the guilt-inducing dreadmill dictating the pace for me.

I hope the newly earned endurance will correlate with better grades. Some professors say that marathoners are among their best students. I’ve also seen students (like Jessie, from Boy in Suit) express regret that they didn’t work out more. I’m toying with the idea of a marathon…but I’ll be happy with just maintaining the running schedule during the Minnesota Winter. Yikes.

Other things:

  • I received my lease for Gamma eta Gamma. Excitement ensued.
  • UMN received my last deposit and transcript. Joy y hallelujah señor. All is right with the world into the financial aid letter comes at the end of July.
  • The diploma arrived and I was underwhelmed. The sum of a $170,000 education: a bootleg laserjet job. It looked like the MS Word diplomas that were doled out at elementary school graduation. I told my mother that she could keep the diploma. I didn’t want it. I tried my best not to sound bitter (not about my diploma, it’s not that serious, but about the whole undergrad experience) but think mom was sort of disappointed that I wasn’t excited. Womp.
  • To underscore my alumni-ness, my canecard (student card) stopped working, so I had to get an alumni card. The alumni cards are sort of drained of all color…grey and peach. Eh.
  • I finally figured out the RSS thing. I now have a RSS feed of law-student blogs on my Windows Vista Sidebar. Nerdage. I know.  Oh, and just because I don’t comment doesn’t mean I don’t read… especially on blogs that use blogger (like Thanks but No Thanks) and require a google account to comment. Wordpress all the way!
  • The drama on LSD is just ridiculous. They have an affirmative action board that vacillates between ignorant and annoying.
  • Another thing I noticed on LSD is that a lot of posters link to their Law School Numbers accounts. Law School Numbers is a site where people post their admissions stats (GPA, LSAT, Extra Currics, etc.) the schools they applied to, and whether or not they got in. I simply don’t understand how it is not incredibly tacky (if you have good scores) or outright embarrassing (if you have bad scores) to share that information through that site and then link it on LSD. This one girl had a 152 and got rejected from, well, some less-than-prestigious schools. Why on earth would she want to advertise that? What am I missing here?
  • And finally, my gopher gear arrived and I’ve been obnoxious about wearing it everywhere.
June 19th, 2008

Prep

A box of Gopher Gear should arrive any day now. I went on a small online shopping spree for UMN shirts after I paid my last deposit.

I also put “Getting to Maybe” aside and started reading Barron’s “How to Succeed in Law School.”

And… I’m figuring out how to brief cases. I figure time spent with my legal dictionary and cases over the summer will pay off in the fall.

I wish I could buy my books already, but the wording on my school’s website doesn’t give me any clue when the required book list will be released. It will be in my registration packet. When do I get this packet? During registration at orientation? Or do these packets come out beforehand? Hm, hm, hm.

May 8th, 2008

Burning my Security Blanket

UMN Law is my first choice. I was accepted and I’m attending. This is old news.

The first deposit is already in. This is happening. I want this.
I’m excited. I really really am.

But declining all these other schools, especially those that gave me full rides, feels like burning my security blanket.