Back to school

It's been a while, but with a new adventure comes a new string of blog posts. I'm officially set up in Hyde Park. My apartment is a university-owned, fully furnished studio south of campus. I've got everything I need here from a large desk to a huge walk-in closet to a futon. Since it's a studio, I have one big room that acts as living room-dining room-office-bedroom. In order to make my apartment feel a little bigger*, I fold the futon up into a couch during the day and use the kitchen-side of the table for eating meals. After dinner, I retire to the futon bed and use the bed-side of the table. It might sound crazy, but there you go.

The kitchen is pretty small and there's no room for a microwave so I'm considering not buying one (you'd be surprised at how easy it is not to have a microwave, when I was in Korea I didn't have one and I was fine) or putting it in a cabinet. I'm not sure how the latter idea would play out so I'm putting it off for now. Actually, I think the only appliance I really need but don't have is a toaster. There's just something about toast that I soft bread can't satisfy.

The main reason I don't need a microwave, or groceries much at all, is because my school feeds me almost every day. There are talks, club meetings, and receptions almost every day where free lunch and sometimes dinner are provided. In addition, free or heavily subsidized booze is very common. I'm not sure why, but for some reason they feel very strongly about having us buzzed all the time.

Law school isn't as bad as I'd expected (it could help that I'm buzzed all the time). The homework is consistently 1-4 hours of reading per day and I have 2-4 hours of class today. So it's kind of like a job, but I have plenty of down time. I also don't have the distractions of a big city.

Hyde Park is pretty slow. There are no grocery stores, convenience stores, bars, or restaurants anywhere near my apartment. Campus has quite a few options, including a Subway and a smattering of coffeeshops, but sometimes I crave something (anything) else. The school has 3 buses that take me from the law school to a shopping area (and by shopping area I mean a square that has a Whole Foods-type grocery store, an Office Depot, and a Walgreens) but the buses stop running at 6, so you know, it could be better.

Downtown Chicago is awesome. I've only really been there twice. But today being a lovely day I decided to head into the city. I grabbed an express bus instead of the El (elevated train) because my nearest El is in a kind of a sketchy neighborhood. The bus took forever to get down there because of the traffic. There was a USA-Poland soccer match, the Chicago marathon, a country music festival, and perhaps other stuff going on too. So it took a while, but once I got there I really enjoyed it. I started at Millenium Park, which has these awesome face fountains (I'll upload pictures) and this cool bean sculpture (it'll make sense when you see it). The park was packed and I overheard some people talking about the Culture Center across the street. I went to check it out and it was really beautiful on the inside. It has the largest Tiffany dome in the country (no, I don't know what that means either, but it was pretty).

Next I walked down the "Magnificent Mile" (what they call Michigan Avenue, kind of like the main street of the city) all the way to Lake Michigan. I have to admit, I thought I'd really miss being close to the ocean and had no idea how enormous the lake is. It's huge. You can't see across it and they have beaches, so it's a lot like having an ocean close by. I sat on the beach for a while and enjoyed the weather while it lasts (I hear it gets bad here).

I wanted to head back before it got dark and I went in search of the bus in the opposite direction. I assumed I could just cross the street from where I originally got off and there would be a bus stop there. Well, there was a bus stop, but the bus I needed did not stop there. I walked and walked in search of it but never found it. In the end, I just took the El. The stop closest to my apartment was only 3 blocks away.


Here's my law school schedule:

Civ Pro = Civil Procedures; Crim Law = Criminal Law; Elem of Law = Elements of the Law; Contracts = Contracts; LRW = Legal Research and Writing

So far I love all of my professors. They're brilliant, personable and funny. I think Professor McAdams is my favorite. After going over the old definition of a vagrant (which included jugglers, people who frequent liquor houses, and those who can support themselves but choose instead to rely upon their wives) he actually juggled**. All of the professors rely pretty heavily on the Socratic Method, or "cold-calling," but it's actually not too bad. For the most part, no one sounds stupid.

Name dropping: My contracts professor, Eric Posner is the son of a famous former lawyer and current professor also at my school, Judge Richard Posner. Former professors Obama and Kagan met here many years ago. And Supreme Court justices Scalia and Stevens also both taught here.

The undergraduate campus (about a block north of my apartment and the law school) is beautiful. It features gothic architecture, beautiful and surprisingly enormous cathedrals, the Frank Lloyd Wright "Robie House" and a really interesting glass dome, which apparently will be part of the library. It's a relatively small campus, so I'm only occasionally lost. There's a building called the Reynolds Club which is sort of a common area for all the students. It has some dining options, a cafe, theater, a few lounges, and an awesome dining area that I swear looks like the dining hall in Hogwarts (but with smaller tables). Portraits of former deans and presidents of the school line the walls. Oh private schools.

All right, more to come at a later date. Happy Autumn.

*Fool myself. Not so hard, really.
**Not 100% what the lesson was there.