Be Prepared - Emergency Broadcast System.

When I moved to New York, I had quite a bit of food storage. It's part of my heritage, after all, to be prepared.

Somebody's Mother thought I also needed to be storing water. I am too cheap to buy bottled water. I then embarked on a fun task. I decided that I'd be able to acquire bottles for/of water for free by taking a bottle from each event at school where drinks are served. Each bottle became a delightful treasure, and I looked forward to getting them, bringing them home, and putting them under my bed.

I have acquired a pretty substantial collection. (If it's an event with bigger bottles, where you pour a glass of water, I have been known to grab the empty/full bottles of water at the end of the event and take those bottles, too.)

About a month ago, our fifth Sunday lesson at church was about hurricane preparedness. The bishop emphasized that the Stake didn't want anyone to panic and wasn't saying one was going to happen, but they thought we all needed to be prepared. We examined maps, looked at evacuation zones, made plans to acquire appropriate goods for our own personal storage, etc.

Flash forward to this week. Hello, Hurricane Irene! That counsel from our Stake is starting to look pretty prophetic.

You've probably heard some about Irene on the news. Here's what you need to know, if you're wondering how I'm doing:

• I do NOT live in any of the evacuation zones. I'm a little bit too far inland, and a little bit up a hill, so I'm in good shape. So far, they have ordered mandatory evacuation of only one zone in Manhattan. The storm is not on track to require evacuation of more zones, but if it did, that would still not be me. About 250,000 people have been ordered to evacuate so far.
• One of the girls in my ward asked, last month, if I could be her evacuation plan. I laughed and told her of course, thinking we'd never need to worry about it. Yet here we are! She's on track to be here tomorrow, so no one needs to worry that I'm alone or anything.
• All of the public transportation will shut down tomorrow at noon. I'm basically going to be stuck in my neighborhood, but since it's going to be a hurricane outside, I'll be okay.
• Church on Sunday is canceled because of the lack of public transit and the mandatory evacuation. I know, you're all jealous. :)
• I have plenty of water and food. I could live for a long, long time. 
• The girl who is sheltering at my apartment also has her own food and water that she is bringing, so we're set.
• The largest problem we face is a power loss. If we lose power, we won't have water. (Water has to be pumped to the tops of the buildings, but that doesn't happen with no power.) Again, I have plenty of water storage, and I will fill the bathtub if the power goes out for toilet-flushing purposes.
• Airports are all shutting down.
• The worst of the storm is supposed to be Saturday night into Sunday, ending by Sunday night.
• I anticipate being back at school on Monday. I have too much to do to take any days off!
• It is still 100% possible that the storm will fizzle out or change course, and that it'll just be a touch rainy and unpleasant instead of hurricane-y.

All in all, things here are fine. No need to worry about me. It may be difficult for me to reach you or for you to reach me. This week, after the earthquake, cell service was down because the towers were overloaded with calls. That same phenomenon could occur this weekend. Additionally, if we lose power, I'll need to conserve my phone battery. I'll be in communication with Somebody's Mother as much as possible, so if you are wondering about me at any point during the weekend, you can contact her.

Rest assured, I'm well prepared, perfectly located, and not at all concerned about the coming weekend. I am blessed by following the counsel of prophets and leaders and wise parents, who raised me to always be prepared and self-sufficient. I didn't have to go out and buy food or water or anything. (Confession: I did go buy a carton of juice, after deciding I might want some juice this weekend.) I was just already ready to deal with it, and having been prepped a few weeks ago about the unlikely possibility of hurricanes in NYC, I feel ready to deal with the situation. It's like they say--if you're prepared, you don't have to fear. :)

I'll shortly return you to your regularly scheduled Bacon Blogging, assuming NYC doesn't decide to have some other random natural disaster in the next week...

Earthquake Update

Well, folks, it's true! There was an earthquake out here. The epicenter was actually in Virginia, so it wasn't too terrible here. I was at school, in class, when it happened. Although many buildings in Manhattan had to evacuate, we did not.

This was actually my first experience with an earthquake while being awake. I have to say I'm not a huge fan. I found the whole thing oddly disconcerting, which was compounded by the fact that several people in the class didn't even notice it. (They may have been hung over, so maybe they already felt weird.)

Anyway, other than losing cell service for a while (due to heavy usage, not due to any structural damage), things in NYC are just fine. No damage, no injuries. Just a lot of people standing out in the street, waiting to get back to work.

Whiners

Some people (LL) are unhappy with my recent lack of blog posting. My apologies. I've been busy. Very, very busy. Unhappy with that? Sucks to be you--life is just getting busier for me! I'll try to do better, honestly, but this is going to be a very busy year for me.

I know I promised a posting about how my family tried to kill me, and I'll do that, but I don't really have time now, so I'll share one brief story from my week.

Earlier this week, I was walking near Union Square on my way to the subway station. Walking toward me was a person that was probably middle aged, but looked a bit older. He or she had a very rough look. So rough, in fact, that I could not tell if it was a man or woman.

He or she was wearing an open flannel shirt as he or she walked toward me.

Man or woman, those were breasts I did not need to see this week.

Heat Up, 'Til You Sizzle

Also, I'm in a suit, walking around outside to and from court.

Consensus

I should have known to not give you all a poll for something. Although I love you all, you've never been able to make group decisions. Of course, you all do come from many different parts of my life, geographically speaking, as well as being from my past and present (and future? Ooooo...creepy!).

Anyway, there was no consensus on the poll. Those who voted wanted a more private Bacon experience. I'm not sure why you voted that way, if perhaps you thought that a private blog might entice me to be more detailed in my accounting of my life, or if you all were the kids picked last for teams and just wanted to belong to something.

Those who made comments were generally opposed to the privatization of the blog, mostly because of Google Reader issues. (There's a whole tangent I'm not going to take here, but really, it's a mystery to me that Google Reader can't manage to read private blogs for you, even though this blog is brought to us all by Google!)

Perhaps I am to blame in all of this. Maybe my poll didn't have enough choices that most closely matched your tenderest feelings. Deepest apologies.

Moving forward, essentially, nothing will change. I'm keeping the status quo for now. I'll make only one request of you, and that is if you have a blog that links to mine, please don't use my name in the link.

Other than that, I appear to be all yours for the next little while.

I'm out of time, but hopefully I'll have time later this week for a really special post I've been crafting for a while now. It's called "Chariots of Fire, or How My Family Tried to Kill Me."

Poll on Your Right

Because this is somewhat a democracy, there's a poll on your right. Feel free to express your thoughts. I may take them into consideration. It's tough to say.

Also, so this posting isn't just a waste, here's an interesting story for your day. This morning, there were five police cars on my street a few buildings away from me. As I walked past, a big group of police officers were headed into a building. One was just standing out on the street, waiting. I said good morning to him. He smiled and said good morning back to me. I have no idea why they were there, but I was kind of sad that I had to go to work and couldn't remain to see what they came back out with. (People? Drugs? Who knows?)

Never fear, relatives who worry about my safety: these weren't the police officers with the machine guns. I've never seen those ones on my street. Other streets, sure, but not my street... This was a low-level offense, I'm sure; my street is very safe. My street could be a stand in for Sesame Street. We have fewer Muppets, but it's basically the same otherwise.

Adventures in Bugs

Today, I saw a huge flying cockroach as I walked under some scaffolding. Gross.

I think it might have followed me home. I can sense its presence.

Fortunately, I have a video intercom, so if it tries to get me to buzz it up, I'll know. If it somehow blocks me in here, well, that's why I have food storage.

Busy Busy Bee

Where on earth have I been??

Working! My internship is keeping me really, really busy. I am learning a lot and am looking forward to telling you all about it and the interesting things I've been doing, but right now, I just don't have time!

One great thing about interning for a non-profit organization is that they genuinely can use the help, so I'm getting to do a lot of really great substantive work, and I never have to get anyone coffee or make copies or sit around feeling useless.

The work is hard, but it's great.

More info to come, including a more information on the end of my 1L year and a sneak peek at next year.

Can you wait? You'll have to--I'm busy!!

Skirts

One thing that helps in the heat is wearing a skirt. Skirts are cooler, better circulation, no clingy pant legs, etc.

One thing that's not great about wearing a skirt is that when a subway train approaches a station, it creates a pretty dramatic breeze. I was wearing a skirt today as I went down some stairs toward my train on my way to church. A train got to the station as I was walking down the stairs, and I had a very Marilyn Monroe moment.

My sister sent me this link about another hazard of wearing skirts. I'm in court a lot these days, but fortunately, the courthouse where I'm spending time isn't quite like this one...

Weatherman

Today as I exited the subway after my ride home from work, I saw an umbrella man right at the exit. Umbrella sellers don't normally just stand out on the streets with their carts of umbrellas, but whenever it rains, there are freestanding umbrella carts that appear as if by magic by most subway exits. It's really impressive, and sort of puzzling because I am not sure who those people are when it's not raining. Are they somewhere else with some other cart? Sleeping? Day jobs? Spider-man? Tough to say.

Anyway, the weird thing about today's umbrella man was that it wasn't raining. It was cloudy, but not raining. We've been in the middle of a horrible, unseasonable heat wave (think 100 degrees, 100% humidity), and the weather forecast said it was going to rain tomorrow, so I knew it was going to cool off and rain a bit, but I was still surprised to see the umbrella man out while it was dry. Then, as I walked home, it started to sprinkle a bit. And about 5 minutes after I got into my apartment (maybe 10 minutes after seeing the umbrella man), it was POURING rain, with big, impressive lightning and thunder. How did he know???

Forget The Weather Channel--the umbrella men have the weather down.

Vacation

This is the last weekend of my vacation. Monday, I start my internship. I am incredibly excited, and I'm ready to begin, but that's mostly just because my super-awesome house guest, LL, is gone, and I'm not having nearly as much fun without her.

That's right--I had company! LL arrived last Thursday for a sisters' weekend here in the city. LL now lives in the country, so I went up to the airport to ride the bus home with her because I didn't want her to end up in Astoria or something. Her flight was very, very delayed, but she finally got here.

We went to the temple, we went to a Broadway show, we shopped, we walked and walked and walked and walked (9 miles one day, probably 5 miles another day), we ate gooooooooood food, we laughed, we lounged, we talked and talked and talked, and we just had a grand ol' time. 

This was the first time LL's husband, JC, and her three boys, ages 6 and under, were all home without LL. The boys pulled out a miracle and napped, slept in, went to bed early, and went pretty easy on JC. Of course, now that LL is home, they're back to their usual behaviors, but...

Manhattanhenge - twice a year, the sun sets perfectly aligned with the grid here, and because of the tall buildings and view of the horizon, it's pretty spectacular. LL and I caught this on Monday. This shot is from a minute or two before the perfect alignment.

And perfect sunset. Jealous? Come visit. :)

The day before she left, we were talking on the phone with her boys. I teased Moo, her 4 year old, saying that I was thinking about keeping her forever. He replied that I could keep her for one more week. What a sweetheart! I wish I could keep her forever. It was so fun to show her around my city and to just have someone to laugh and enjoy my break with. It was perfect.

Looking across the reservoir during our walk home after Manhattanhenge.

1L Done

My last final was last Friday morning, and then I had a last project thing that took place during Monday, Tuesday, and today.

Now it's all over. YAY!

In some ways, it feels like I've always been in law school. In other ways, I can't believe I'm already done with my 1L year. I'm a 2L now! CRAZY! My sister is a big fan of the 2L year, as she likes to refer to it as the "LL year." It's true that I'm going to be participating in some stuff this coming year that she would definitely approve of, so it probably is pretty accurate to call it my LL year.

Now it's summer. You can tell because over the past few days, it has suddenly gotten really hot here. Wait, what? No spring? Yeah, we had just a couple of nice weeks, and now it's Hotsville here. (That's not really encouraging any of you to visit...hmmm...)

So, what are my big summer plans? Since you all have very appropriately not asked, or waited to ask until very recently, paying due deference to my busy, tumultuous schedule, I'll tell you! I have an internship here in the city, so I'll be starting that on June 6th. I'm very excited to be back in an office environment and doing some work that matters. Beyond working, I plan to read, relax, and see some things in New York that I just haven't gotten around to seeing yet (uh, Staten Island, anyone?).

Today, I went down to the New York Public Library (not the one with the lions...I went to a closer branch, but yes, I do occasionally go by the one with the lions, and yes, it's gorgeous) to present my ID and verification of residency so that I could get my library card! I was like an 8-year-old girl, bouncing with excitement for her first library card. The public library system here is massive, and anything they have can just be requested to show up at your local branch for pick up. So convenient! They literally have every book that I have on my gigantic list of books I want to read. When you're in law school, you don't really read for pleasure much because you spend all day reading for school. So whenever I hear or read about a book I want to read, I add it to my big list of books, hoping that some day I'll have a chance to read. After a semester of reading thousands of pages of dense text, I'm looking forward to making as big a dent in my gigantic list as possible.

My library also has a surprisingly cool option to check out books electronically and read them on your iPhone. You just do it all online, and then when your rental is over, the book just disappears and you don't even have to remember to return it! Not that it's hard to return books here, since there are a bazillion branches of the library and I can return my books to any branch, but...

(Bragging? Me?? Sure. There are some fantastic perks to living in a giant city. One is the library. Another is having anything you want delivered day or night. Jealous? Come visit me.)

I'm also hoping to get out of the city for a weekend or two this summer and maybe do some camping with some friends from church. It is so, so beautiful here, and I'm ready to explore!

At the end of the summer, I have a small break between my internship ending and school beginning, and I'm toying with the idea of flying to Utah for a quick visit. It's an expensive time to fly, but I will have a new nephew by then, and I sure do love my nephews...

All in all, I suspect it will be a fantastic couple of months, even if it is a bit of a sauna in this grand city.

Motivation

My very first job was working at a fast food restaurant. (Side note: there is enough material from that job to write not just a blog, but a memoir, I swear...) One of the assistant managers at the restaurant was a guy named Dan. Occasionally, Dan would yell, "Where is my motivation??" And we'd all reply (with varying levels of enthusiasm, depending on what had happened so far that day), "Go, Dan, go!"

I'm working here on a really, really unpleasant project, and all I want to do is sleep and go to the park and watch TV and sleep some more. That memory from my first job keeps popping into my head, and I sigh to myself, as Dan did periodically, "Where is my motivation??"

I seem to have run out of motivation from this long, long semester. I think I need a vacation to recharge. Or maybe just some Timbits. Or both. Who wants to come visit me?? 

Such A Waste

Ever since I moved to NYC, I've been totally fascinated by the various people that one passes in the subway stations. There are many people, and I have many favorites that I don't have time to talk about today.

The one that's on my mind lately is a pretty big group of people, but there are just a handful of women that I see more than the others. I like to refer to them as the "Holy-God-Will-Bring-Judgment-Day Ladies" since they all have big signs that say "Holy God Will Bring Judgment Day." As long as I've known them, they've been patiently handing out pamphlets in the subway stations letting everyone know that Judgment Day is upon us, arriving on May 21st. They are 100% sure that this Saturday will be the end of the world. Well, not technically. They say all of the very righteous will be sucked up into heaven this Saturday, then there will be a massive earthquake that will shake the whole earth, and then over the next five months, everyone who is left will be destroyed as the world and universe are demolished, ending some time in October in the total annihilation of everything.  Their method of arriving at this date is quite complex, but they're quite certain, and totally not shaken by the verse in the bible that talks about no man knowing the day.

Anyway, I have to say, Saturday is a REALLY bad day for the world to end for me. I mean, come on. If the world is going to end, couldn't that happen BEFORE I spend two weeks taking finals instead of the day AFTER I finish?

Final number three tomorrow, final number four on Friday. Almost there!

Strangely Disappointed

I saw a headline to a New York Times article today called "A Disputed Surgery Helped Colon's Comeback."

When I clicked on the link, I found out it was about a person named Colon, not someone's colon having a comeback because of a disputed surgery. I was instantly less fascinated by this crazy headline, once I discovered that it was not, in fact, crazy at all.

The Finals Countdown

*cue the music*

Yep, folks, it's that time once again! FINALS!! I always tell people that finals are the victory lap after the big semester of learning. This semester, I'm very excited for my classes to end. I had one class where I didn't care for the subject (but was required to take it), a class where I didn't care for the professor, a class with a ton of assigned reading, and a lot of other things going on.

But now, the end is here! Classes ended last week, and I've been hunkered down in my apartment, doing my best to study. My first final is tomorrow (2:00 pm EDT, for those of you who pray/think nice thoughts/cross fingers). My second final is Friday morning. Then I have the weekend to prepare for my next final, on Tuesday, and then two days to prepare for my last final, Friday morning. Then I will be DONE with my first year of law school. I can't believe it! It feels like I have a lot to do before it's all done, so I'll still be pretty busy over the next few days. Both of my exams this week are closed book, which is rough for law school, and having the two of them right in a row is a bit overwhelming, but it'll be over in a few days!

I was just doing some reading when my textbook for the course with the exam tomorrow dove off my couch, into the trashcan. I think this is a sign. Time to stop studying. :) Or time to take out the trash. One or the other.

Law School Tidbit: Contracts II

We were reading a case in Contracts about the broken levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The plaintiffs in the case were suing their insurance companies, who refused to cover the losses because "flooding" was excluded. The reasoning is kind of long, so I won't bore you with it, but the bottom line is that the levy breaking counted as flooding, so the people lost the case.

Professor: What's your remedy? Well, it's not law; it's Brad Pitt. Life's not all bad.

Law School Tidbit: Criminal Law

Early in the semester, after having a student give the facts of a case, the professor notes what he thought was missing:


 “You left out the most important fact of the case: everyone was really drunk. For most of our cases, you can just take that as a given background fact.”

And that has turned out to be so true.

Law School Tidbit: Contracts

I'll be pretty busy for the next month preparing for and taking my finals for this semester. (Side note: yippee!! Almost done with these classes!)

I don't want to leave you all alone for that time, so I'll occasionally try to write something funny that I discover in my notes as I'm outlining in my exam prep. (In classes, I tend to write occasional funny things that happen or that my professors say down in my notes just along with the rest of the content. It makes for a delightful outlining process as I get to uncover all of these gems!)

Today's gem is from my Contracts professor, right at the beginning of the semester, when we were reviewing the midterm exam he gave us in December. After the professor finished the review, he said:

"Have I upset you? Have I been rude? Not sensitive enough? Of course I have. I’m all of those things and more."

We laughed really hard because he has a dark, dry sense of humor, but he is nowhere near being our rudest, most upsetting professor. (I won't be blogging about that one. You just don't need to experience that!)

More to come over the next few weeks, if I have time...

Well, Sure

I just saw a random commercial while I was eating dinner.

It was about some prescription medication...I don't remember what the purpose of the medication is, but in a discussion about side effects, the commercial mentioned that when taking the medication, you should use caution when "doing unsafe tasks."

Uh, shouldn't you ALWAYS use caution when doing unsafe tasks? And why are people out doing unsafe tasks? And where are their parents??