Up from the Ashes

Yes, I know a year is a long time to go without posting.  Since Xanga still hasn't shut down my account, I thought I should give a quick reckoning of everything that's happened since my last post.  Got a master's degree at the U of I, moved to Chicago, started law school at Northwestern.

Okay, maybe a little more detail than that is necessary.

A few chief things have been keeping me busy during the school year.  I was taking five classes a semester, for starters.  I've finished four of my spring classes and have one final to go.  But you don't want to hear about that, or if you do, I can post again later.  No, no, you don't want to hear it.  Just after orientation started, Mary and I went to the nearest shelter, Felines Inc., adopted a pair of cats we renamed Dante and Beatrice, and ensured that even the laziest weekday afternoon reading case law in the living room would never again be dull.  We also tried a few churches in the area and wound up at St. Luke's in Evanston, quickly joining the choir and getting to know the rest of the congregation through social events.

Early in the year, the a cappella group Habeas Chorus (it's a pun) held auditions and I joined up.  This semester, I finally finished arranging Jackson Browne's "Doctor My Eyes," which had been an intermittent side project, and claimed the solo.  I'll be one of the codirectors next year, when I hope I'll have also arranged "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash (for Robb, the excellent bass who never had a solo this year) and "No Matter What" by Badfinger (just because it's so darned catchy).

I also joined the Library Committee of the Student Bar Association, but we didn't do much.  I missed the first committee meeting and had conflicts with most of the general SBA meetings, so I get the feeling I won't really be involved next year.  SBA smacks a little of the high-school-student-council crowd but manages to have an influence on school policy and activities instead of just building résumés.  I also started attending meetings of the Christian Legal Society pretty regularly, and I'll be an officer in that organization next year, probably putting my experience as a small-group Bible study leader to use once every month or two, as well as planning some events andworking on the website if time allows.

By the middle of the semester, plans were underway to revive The Pleader, the law school's on-again-off-again newspaper.  Over the course of the spring semester, we released three online issues.  I worked on two stories for each, although one of my second-issue pieces was consolidated into the third-issue installment, and served as Campus/Events Editor.  We won an award for website of the year.  I don't think there was a lot of competition.

The spring brought two more sizeable commitments.  I auditioned for Wigmore Follies, the annual student-written, student-produced musical, and played Dean Van Zandt as a shy, nerdy law student in 1985.  My character came straight from George McFly in Back to the Future, but there were several other intertwined plots from eighties movies, including Top Gun, Footloose, and everything with Molly Ringwald in it.  The music was all eighties pop and rock rewritten with law-related lyrics:  our big dance numbers were based on Bon Jovi, Wham!, and Starship, my solo was Duran Duran, and I had a Bryan Adams duet.

Just after auditions, I also submitted my résumé to work part-time as a student representative for Westlaw, one of the two big legal research firms (the other being Lexis).  I work a few hours a week in the computer lab, helping people find documents online, organizing people's research printouts, and clearing paper jams.  It's not very glamorous, but I've been working part-time every school year since I was a sophomore, and Mary and I have found it nice to have a little cushion in addition to her income as a librarian at Park Forest Public Library.  Westlaw has been good to me.  Last weekend I bought two things that I'd needed for a while, Magical Mystery Tour (see "Currently Listening") and replacement sneakers.

Mary and I have been living in Edgewater, a neighborhood near the northeast corner of Chicago, so her commute to Park Forest has been extremely trying, especially now that the Dan Ryan is under construction and commuters get shunted off onto slow business-lined and stoplight-jammed roads.  The things that make Edgewater nice are things that we don't get to take advantage of:  quiet tree-lined streets for leisurely walks past historic homes, Lake Michigan lapping at the shore half a mile from us, quaint little restaurants with diverse cuisine, et cetera.  We just live here.  The only advantages we get to employ are our proximity to the nearest Dominick's and my quarter-mile walk to the Red Line.  We might have an apartment here, but we don't get to spend a lot of time in it.  We're planning to move this summer to a suburb closer to Mary's job.  We've looked a little at Tinley Park and Oak Forest, which are pretty familiar haunts for me, but Homewood-Flossmoor seems like an appealing tandem too.  I almost lost my mind hunting for apartments last summer, so Mary's going to take the initiative on this search.  I might have my hands full enough with a pair of part-time jobs on campus, doing research to help create problems for a legal writing class and planning orientation events for the class of 2009.

Now that I've said all that, I do still have another final tomorrow.  Time to get back to reading.

Currently Listening Magical Mystery Tour By Beatles see related

     My Worst Post Yet

I figured I owe the three people (and one cat) who read this blog an apology; I'm more or less letting my blog rot on the vine until the semester ends. In the meantime, I feel like whatever time I have to write (which isn't much) I should spend on my fiction practicum. It's nice to meet once a week with a handful of people who mean to write creatively for a living and who don't mind telling me why I never will . . .

     But As Long As I'm Here . . .

Current busywork: another batch of manuscript for the fiction class, expected this Friday night; a presentation on Richard III, to be given next Monday; about 44 American lit midterms, to be graded by March 4; twelve hours at the Writers' Workshop per week, plus answering whatever e-mails they get. Some typical questions, trusting that this doesn't constitute some violation of privacy:

• do you use a comma before or after like?
• I want to know how to cite sources
• Hello, I am a grade 9 student, who has a very very important question to ask.. how to I construct a APA style bibliography for a website? I have an important project due tomorrow(!!) and it requires a APA style bibliography! could you please tell me how to construct it asap (if possible!!) plz send this information to [e-mail address here]! Stressed-out grade 9-er!!
• for the title of the bibliography do you just put bibliography

Well, you get the picture.

Between Christmas and my recent birthday, lots of good music going on. Just listing one of the latest additions here; thanks to Mary again.

Currently Playing Born to Run By Bruce Springsteen see related

     Further Slacking

I thought I'd be posting regularly again as of the end of finals week, when I hoped to finish my Waverley paper. Ten days later, the paper remains unfinished. Mary and I spent the last four days in Chicago and we'll soon spend four in Belleville, so I don't have much access to a computer. I hope to swing by Grand Rapids the weekend of January 7-9, so the paper had best be done by then. I want to be a good blogger, really. It's just Walter Scott who doesn't want me to be.

Four Christmases down, two or three to go. My thanks to Mary for the Steely Dan you see listed below ...

Currently Playing Aja By Steely Dan see related

     A Quick and Apologetic Update

I've been e-mailing more people to tell them about my blog, so I owe it to the world to write more frequently. Too bad there's so little good material. The last week of classes before Thanksgiving was pretty unremarkable. Benito Cereno in one class, Waverley criticism in the other. Melville and Scott will probably be responsible for inspiring my papers this semester. Lots of work left.

The week since coming back from Thanksgiving has also been pretty dull. My students are gearing up for their final presentations next week. I made a quick trip to Chicago yesterday for my interview with Northwestern Law. At times on the road, I felt like I should have left an hour earlier, and yet I got to their campus about an hour before my interview. Just goes to show that you can never predict the Dan Ryan. The buildings are beautiful, the students are studious, and the parking costs an arm and a leg -- the exact opposite of Chambana.

I'll tell more about my interview soon, and I'll also share a couple of anecdotes from Thanksgiving with Mary's family. I'm sure I'll need some excuse to put off grading in the next few days. Right now, dinner's ready.

Currently Playing Simon & Garfunkel - Greatest Hits By Simon & Garfunkel see related

     A Most Peculiar Man

There's no kind way to say what I'm about to say: our upstairs neighbors are idiots. Anyone who was familiar with my living conditions for the last two years will say, but R. J., you always hate your upstairs neighbors. Of course. It's simple physics. But this year's pair have lately made life more difficult than usual. We awoke at four in the morning to find that our building was shaking and squeaking. The noise being mostly confined to the living room, we went back to bed and stared at the ceiling for an hour or two, convinced we would fall back asleep fairly soon.

Most of today was uneventful, as I graded project proposals, read Lukács, and began to reassemble my ENGL 493 portfolio online. Mary and her mom shopped through most of the afternoon. As we sat down to dinner, however, the same bizarre noises recommenced. What could be the cause of this ruckus? Were they testing hundreds of pogo sticks for a manufacturer? Training their pet kangaroos to box? Vigorously humping everything in sight in a drug-induced haze?

This disruption occurring periodically over a couple of hours, Mary and I finally took it upon ourselves to visit apartment 6. Through the blinds, we caught a glimpse of the culprit:

DDR.

That's right, our building's structural integrity was in jeopardy on account of Dance Dance Revolution. We had a quick word with one of the revolutionaries, who seemed much too small to be generating such thunderous noises. If I'm awake at four in the morning again tonight, I'm going to bring additional tools of persuasion for my next visit (hacksaw, sledgehammer, icepick, etc.). For now, I'll hope that common sense was a powerful enough weapon.

Currently Playing Next Voice You Hear: The Best of Jackson Browne By Jackson Browne see related