Winging It

Beantown rugby is ridiculous. Ridiculous! They are currently #3 in the country and have a historical record of 639-61. I don't think I've ever been on a team, for any sport, that's so used to winning, and playing at such a high level of competition.

We have 40-50 players and 3-5 coaches at every practice. In a lot of ways it's similar to the Furies with having a huge team and very knowledgeable coaches. I'm definitely glad I went to Beantown instead of another local team which wouldn't have had the same depth.

We have three sides

• A, who plays in Women's Premier League against the Furies and 6 other teams across the country
  
• B side, who generally plays WPL opponents' B sides or other senior women or collegiate teams
• C side, which is playing in Div III and is a new team this year

I've been playing with C side which is a perfect fit for my level of skill, fitness, and time commitment this year. We had a nice win over Furies C on 9/12 and Middlesex on 9/19.

But yesterday, finally, Saturday was a Rugby Day again! We've been playing matches on Sunday because WPL plays on Sundays, but Saturday matches are a rugby tradition and having a recovery day is very helpful. I started off playing scrumhalf for Beantown, but I had muscle spasms in my back on the 19th and had to come out early, and problems persisted throughout the week, so I was switched to wing and scheduled to play only a half against Amoskeag.

We took the field, the forwards drove the ball up the field, sucking in the defense, and then the ball spun out to the backs. My outside center made a great cut and passed it to me just steps outside the try zone, and I scored! Only 48 seconds into the game! And that was pretty much how the rest of the game went, with me scoring another try, the outside center earning a hat trick, and many other people scoring. It was so fun. I feel like every time I go back to playing wing, I have this realization that it's an incredibly fun position.

Catching up

School started and my posts stopped, sorry. I knew it would happen, but didn't plan to take 25 days to get caught up. I did write a few posts...but didn't publish them, because they weren't perfect. It's a blog. It doesn't need to be perfect! So here comes a few postdated updates.

Also, I got another mouse. This time, it was with a snap trap and I discovered it hours later. This one I felt really bad about, as compared to the one I bludgeoned, which felt like a victory at 4am. This one was just sad.

Lost in Boston: South End edition

9/17 - This is the route I took to (southern route) and home from a team dinner tonight. I liked ending up on Storrow Drive - it's very pretty, winds along the river, and had a great view of downtown. Tonight was misty and the buildings were backlit with a normal city glow that never really gets dark, and part of me is so happy to be in Boston. It's a big, beautiful city, and I've been waiting years to come here.

But....getting lost sucks. I'm getting the hang of some things, and did recognize both Mass Ave and Washington...but still managed to turn the wrong way.

POW 9/14

Yummy white pizza! Garlic, basil, onions, mozzarella, and parmesan with broccoli on top. Delicious. All that's missing is the roommates to do the dishes :-P

POW 9/8

Brandon came over and we made a supreme pizza - sausage, peppers, onions, garlic, and probably a few other things I can't remember by now. He really likes crust, so we tried using 2 lbs of dough, but I think that actually made too much crust. Either way, it was still delicious.

Things I like about Boston

I could probably write a whole post about the T, Boston's subway (and bus and rail) system.

• I travel 3 stations, or 6 mins, up the orange line
• I usually wait 0-3 mins for a train, never more than 4 mins during rush hour
• The most I've ever waited was 10 12 mins
• You can eat and drink on the T
• I usually get a seat and the orange line has yet to be annoyingly crowded
• It only costs $1.70 flat rate per ride, and with my $52 monthly unlimited pass I am paying even less
• Dogs are allowed to ride on the T!
  

Other things I like:

• Northeastern Law - the professors are awesome
• Most of my new classmates are laid back and friendly
• My new laptop - after 7 years with a refurbished Dell, it's great to have my amazingly lightweight Toshiba that is actually portable!
• Beecher St dog park
• Beantown rugby
• Having a new mattress
• BBQs/dinners with Justin's family

Some things I'm not liking so much or that I miss compared to DC - being lonely living by myself after having MEY and Anita as great roommates, cold weather, T stations being outdoors (they will be freezing soon!), Furies rugby

POW 8/31

Pizza of the week! A new category to celebrate my weekly pizza-making. Unfortunately I had some cancellations so I was cooking for one this night. So, I split the pizza, to give me a little variety. Half was bbq chicken with mozzarella, half was fresh tomatoes and basil from my own plants. Yay for pizza!

I caught a mouse

Impressed? I KILLED the mouse!

So I'm tossing and turning on a cheap Ikea mattress, which I think I'm going to have to upgrade asap, because even before rugby it was difficult to sleep on. It's not firm, which means when Izzy jumps into bed, she slides into me. I think it bothers her, too, and the last three nights she's cycled between bed, rug at the foot of the bed, and her crate.

I think I'm hearing things - little noises of mice running all over my bedroom. This is ironic because I just waited 4 days, didn't see anything, and left the management company a message around 9pm saying I think the mice are gone. Well, at 10pm one ran right by me and I almost stomped it and Izzy chased it around the kitchen for a while. So I am trying to sleep, on an ice pack, and hearing imaginary and possibly real mice and keep waking up and am super stressing.

Around 3:30 am I get up and decide to move to the futon in the front room, which is much more comfortable. I also haven't seen mice (yet) in that room. Izzy's a step ahead of me and immediately goes to the sticky paper I left in the middle of the kitchen. It's been out for 24 hrs, but I have my first victim!

Izzy is really good and immediately listens and goes to her crate. It's me and the mouse. His long tail- maybe 3 inches - is on the glue sheet as well as back feet. The front feet are on it, but moving, not stuck. He's working incredibly hard to move. Without tail, he's maybe 1.25" and sorta cute, if not for the fact that HE IS IN MY HOUSE AND IT IS 3 AM.

He seems mostly stuck so I google it to see how long this will take. One site mentions peanut butter, which I had put a little in the middle to lure the mouse, can void the stickiness.

I go back and check and his frantic motions are working - now he's got a back leg free! The tail is starting to slide! He's moving towards the corner of the 5x10" card!

I grab another sticky trap (thank you management for leaving me a couple extra), pull off the paper, and stick it square on top of the mouse, who still has a leg or so on the original paper. I seal it into the baseboard of the cabinets. But I can still hear him moving! There's a tiny space, and mice can fit almost anywhere. I was worried if I went back to sleep he might get out.

My first idea was to pick up the two sheets, place them in a bag, and deliver a death shot. So I got my hammer and a bag. This sorta seems more humane instead of making it starve to death or have a heart attack on sticky paper, right?

But I'm worried that if I lift the second sheet he might not be attached, and it's also stuck to the cabinet and floor and might be hard to get off. So, plan b - hammer the sheet into the mouse. It wasn't a single death shot, more of a volley of shots until I found the head, but that mouse is dead!

I really hope it's been this one mouse that I've seen so much of since I moved in. But even if it's not, I now have one success under my belt. And now I can go back to sleep for an hour of peace.

RUGBY

After my debacle of getting lost last Thursday, I have been acutely aware that I'm missing rugby in my life. It's been my 2-4x week habit for 5.5 years, and I think fitting in the time for rugby will provide me with a workout, a social circle outside school, and an excellence stress relief. So, I'm going to try my best to make it work.

I made it to Beantown practice tonight. A little bit late because of killer traffic, and I missed stretching, which is part 1 of why I'm writing posts at 5 in the morning. I'm sadly out of shape, but it was a good, hard practice, so I feel good about getting back into playing. Because I didn't stretch, and haven't played since June, and we used some techniques new to me, my back really hurts and I'm having trouble sleeping. A small price to pay for playing rugby again.

Town hosts the Furies in two weeks, and two of my favorite people are going to stay with me!

Wow, I picked the right school

Orientation was Monday and Tuesday this week. I can't describe how, especially Monday, it left me with the certainty that this is the best school for me. Now, I'm not expecting law school to be fun, or easy, but I did have several hopes as I went through the application process: to be at a school that was not crazy competitive, where people cared about making a difference not just making hundreds of thousands of dollars upon graduation, etc. I've heard a lot of things that emphasize that so far this week.

Also, the unique thing about NUSL is the co-op program. For undergrads, this means 5 years at Northeastern - eight semesters in class, and two semesters working. For law school, this is how it's different:

Typical school:.............................NUSL:
1L - 2 semesters of class............1L - 2 semesters of class
Summer associate job.................2L - starting June, a quarter of work or school
2L - 2 semesters of class............three more quarters - alternating work/school
Summer associate job.................start 3L year in June - 4 more varying quarters
3L - 2 semesters of classes

Total:
6 semesters in class...................2 semesters + 4 quarters
(about 14 weeks each)..............(14 weeks and 11 weeks, respectively)
2 summer jobs............................4 co-op jobs
(about 11 weeks each)...............(11 weeks each)

So, in case you missed the part in bold, I'll have four jobs when I'm starting a job in May 2013, as opposed to my peers at every other law school that will have two.

There's a ton more to the co-op program - choosing fall-spring or winter-summer to work, job placements in the US or abroad, and all the possible positions. For now I'm definitely considering a co-op in DC and/or going abroad. I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say about this down the line.

Study time

I did a lot of reading this weekend. At least it feels like a lot, until I get to next weekend, when I'll probably have twice as much. I made it out for most of Saturday daytime to help a friend move, and locked myself out in the process. Besides that, mainly reading and a little bit of writing.

Lost in Boston

Looking back, I'm actually a little bit unclear what I did Thursday and Friday in Boston. Besides getting lost. There was definitely a lot of that. Thursday I tried to go to rugby practice, and found out that there's a field at 250 Western Ave in Cambridge (wrong) and a field at 250 Western Ave in Boston (only 1.1 mi away but might as well be 111 when you're lost).

Friday I went to campus to get another book for class. I've been pretty lucky when it came to getting books. The wonderful people on the staff and board at Friendship Place, where I've worked for the last year, gave me Barnes & Noble giftcards as a going away present. That has been sooooo helpful, since casebooks cost about $150 and the supplemental books are usually around $40. Also, I got several books from a good friend from high school who graduated from NUSL last year.

I did a bit of wandering through JP on the way back from campus. I know the main roads, but am not even close to understanding the cut-thrus yet. Hopefully, in time.

I thought of something I did Thursday! I went on a long walk over to Jamaica Pond with Izzy and a classmate.

And something else for Friday - went back to the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) and got my Massachusetts plates and a very fake looking paper license to use until my proper one comes in the mail.