Her Placenta Falls to the Floor...or, 24 hours of driving through the Mid-Atlantic and New England

I spent ALOT of time driving over Thanksgiving break. (See amazing Hyperbole and a Half ALOT story). My supposed to be 7.5 hour drive down took 10. DC and back for the Help the Homeless Walkathon was another 1.5. Visiting KMetkus in Waldorf was another 2.5 roundtrip with rush hour traffic, but the amazing turkey cookies were totally worth it. Then the drive back took another 10 hours. During this time, I was able to get a pretty good assortment of music from Boston, Providence, NY, Philly, Bmore, and DC radio stations. Every once in a while, they did let me down. Here are my own personal music awards for songs played during my TG road trip:

Most awkward lyrics: Live - Lightning Crashes (lyrics). Featuring the placenta line in the title of this post.

Best vocals: Adele - Someone Like You (video)

Awful song that I enjoy, probably because I’ve been hearing it a lot in spinning class: Dev - Dancing in the Dark

Best Rihanna song: We Fell in Love (video)

Worst Artist: Katy Perry

Most overplayed on Boston stations: Sting - Every Little Thing She Does is Magic

Worst song ever: TIE: Maroon 5- Moves like Jagger & Gym Class Heroes - Stereo Hearts

Best parody: Moves like Welker (video)

Best song during the MA-MD drive: Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind. It played while I drove across the top level of the GW bridge in Feb 2011.

Gym Rat v. Couch Potato

I had such high hopes. Every year, I say I’m going to train for the Northern Central Rail Trail relay marathon that I run with my sister. We did it in 2007, 2008, and 2010 (missed getting one of the 40 relay spots in 2009). Every year, I log a few 5-9 mile runs in October and November and then manage to pull out 13.1 miles on raceday, the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

This year, realizing my rugby season would be over October 15th, I committed myself to schoolwork and hitting the gym. I drew up a master plan - I had forty days to get myself in shape for a sub-2 hour half marathon. I’ve consistently run 2:05 with some training, so that was a SMART goal (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. I miss Liz Dilley and her motivational posters!). I signed up for Northeastern’s group fitness pass, which gives me access to spinning, yoga, and seventy-three other classes per week.

I did great for 3 weeks.



Then a combination of finals and being sick knocked me out. I was exhausted and coughing and had zero workouts for two weeks straight before the race. I desperately tried to resell my race entry on Twitter, to no avail, and the race directors were less than understanding. So, I am now the proud owner of a very overpriced cooler-duffle, the race premuim. Hoping to get back into the gym routine when I start co-op in a few days...

Jury Duty

In May, I finally received a long-awaited summons: Jury Duty!

Go ahead and laugh, but most law students I've talked to agree they would love to see the inner workings of a jury. And I've gotten the impression that most lawyers will dismiss other lawyers from the jury pool for being too familiar with the law. So I figure my best shot is before I graduate.

The original date was in late May after I would be moving to DC, so I postponed it to mid-September, and then bumped it again for a friend's wedding. I finally went on October 21st. Conveniently I don't have Friday classes and I was ready to wait all day in hopes of getting on a trial.

I was at the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse in Gov't Center, which houses civil, criminal, landlord-tenant, and juvenile courts. I was hoping for a crim or juvenile trial.

The court officer was fantastic. Once I checked in at 8am, he gave us instructions, had us watch a short video, and gave us a coffee break from 9-10am. He said the most likely scenario was no trial and we'd be done by 1:30pm, but there was a chance we'd get on a trial and be there til the end of the day and possibly for a few additional days, and there was also a chance of being sent home earlier, or having to sit around all day. He got occasional calls from housing, civil, juvenile, and finally crim all saying they would not have a trial today. We were released at 12:15 pm. I was bummed to miss out on the opportunity to serve, but I appreciated getting out so early. Even though I didn't get to a trial, I cannot be called for Mass. jury duty for another three years.

Fortunately, NUSL has Civil and Criminal Trial practice classes and they need volunteer jurors. The trial stretched from 7:30-10:15 pm on a Thursday night the week before finals, which is less than ideal, but I wanted to help out one of my teammates from intramural soccer who was in the class. The trial was pretty interesting - two defendants were accused of murdering a cop, and each side was permitted three witnesses in an abbreviated trial. It all went down in the NUSL moot court room, which was built in 2008 and is pretty nice. The instructor of the class served as judge and he was tough, denying objections and keeping the trial moving. I was really impressed by my peers as they presented opening arguments, examined witnesses, and addressed the jury.

I will definitely consider taking a trial practice class on a future academic quarter. For now, I just need to get through two exams and two papers and I will be home free to Maryland for a week.