the end must be near
I went to Career Services today to ask about the best way to find a job in Austin.
They were actually - dare I say it - helpful. No questions about my grades, no telling me that I'd be better off just looking for a job as a cashier at Target. Just them telling me the best avenues through which to get what I want. I know, I know - you're as shocked as I am.
(Looks out window of Secured Trannies classroom to see if locusts are falling from the sky.)
Labels: austin, job search blues
is "indian summer" still politically correct?
...then again, I don't really care if it is.
The temperatures here in Wisconsin over the weekend reached 90 degrees. It was so hot in my poorly-ventilated apartment that I couldn't get to sleep until about 4:30 this morning. (And yes, for some reason, I showed up to my 9:00am class.)
I realize that, in all likelihood, I'll be moving to Texas in May, and that it's hot there. They also have air conditioning, which is more than I can say for any apartment in Madison that rents for less than $1000 a month.
(Don't worry - I'll be complaining about the frigid temperatures in about three weeks. When that happens, I don't want to hear it.)
Labels: austin, madison
sometimes you close your eyes and see the place where you used to live
Today, I finished the last final of my 2L year. (And honestly, that's about all I can say about that final. Seriously - sitting there talking about policy and "what I would do if I were a shareholder" makes me feel like my exam suddenly turned into an appointment with my shrink where we talk about feelings for an hour. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration...but I don't like the "that's it???" feeling I got from my Business Organizations II final today. And this is a really long parenthetical.)So to celebrate the end of finals, I hopped in Flying Elvis and drove down to Chicago to go see The Killers in concert. Which means that I can now say "I saw Brandon Flowers faceplant on stage during a song." Aside from the slight prop malfunction, and aside from the fact the instruments (a) completely overpowered the vocals, and (b) were giving a lot of feedback during the latter portion of the show, it was a pretty good time.This week has been a week of endings. First, on Tuesday night, I cried as I watched Rory graduate from Yale on "Gilmore Girls". Because, you know, it's been a rocky four years - from the class she got a "D" in, to the part where she dropped out and joined the DAR for a semester...makes my own sad little law school existence seem quite a bit less dramatic in comparison. But the bigger ending this week will occur about...34 hours from now, when my sister graduates from Lynchburg College in Virginia.Which is where I'm headed tomorrow morning. Graduation will be followed by a drive from Lynchburg to Austin with my family, resulting in me spending more time in Tennessee than I ever wanted to, or will ever want to at any point in the future. (Tennessee is right up there with Alabama and Mississippi on my list of states that maybe, you know, the Union should've just let secede without a fight.) But at least I now know that there's a store in Austin that sells cheese curds - something to look forward to while I'm on vacation. Labels: austin, finals, gilmore girls, muzak
how i spent my spring break
Some people write briefs, journal articles, or outlines.Others spend all day lounging around on the beach.Me? I make cake. Or, rather, I create an homage to one of my all-time favorite cartoons, using cake as my medium rather than paint or clay:
All in all, it was a good vacation. Twelve days was definitely too short.
Labels: austin, cooking, vacation
here we go again
So some of my more loyal readers may remember my spring break adventure from last year. Good news, my friends: this year did not disappoint. Since Prosecution is at the crack of dawn and T&E is a mind-sucking vortex, I got an early flight out of Madison to start the spring break revelry on Thursday afternoon. I should've known I was in for a real doozy of a trip this year when my laptop (which had been acting up lately) just stopped working on Thursday morning. (It stopped responding to the battery, so it just lost charge. Basically, this resulted in me not being able to watch stuff on the plane.) And, because it's spring, it was storming in Texas. (You know, big Texas-style storms.) So when I got to the airport, this is how it went down:11:38 - walk up to self-service ticket thingy.11:39 - roll eyes at evil glare from other spring breaker using the other self-service ticket thingy. scan credit card.11:41 - scan credit card again after first transaction canceled.11:43 - flag down ticket counter lady. credit card scanner not working.11:44 - somewhere, the theme to "The Office" starts playing. oh! that's my cell phone.11:45 - Dangerous Dad tells me that my 4:45pm Dallas-Austin flight has already been canceled. (note the current time.) 11:47 - ticket counter lady issues me first-class tickets for the only open flights from Dallas-Austin remaining: one for an early flight (in case my Madison flight is early), and one if it's not.11:48 - call back Dangerous Dad to tell him that I'll be in Texas tonight, and won't be stuck overnight in Dallas.11:49 - triple-check with ticket counter lady that I can take cheese curds through security screening.11:54 - still on cell phone. Hang up, then toss it into security bin with laptop.11:55 - phone starts ringing while it's in the middle of the scanner. Yes, apparently I am that guy. So the plane gets to Dallas about five minutes late. Fortunately, the early flight for which I was ticketed was delayed about an hour, so I had plenty of time to make the flight without sprinting the length of the Dallas airport. So we board the plane about 4:15...and then sit on the runway in Dallas for about 20 minutes because of "storms in Austin". When we finally take off, I see lightening bolts out the window (always a good sign). Then our hour-long flight takes longer because we have to go "around the storms" - namely, from Dallas to Austin via El Paso.I get to Austin about 6:15 that night - only 20 minutes later than originally scheduled. As I'm explaining this to my parents and grandparents, they tell me that there were never any storms in Austin, so that couldn't be the reason for the extra delay. But at that point, it really didn't matter, because the evil magic powers of Howie do not hold a candle to the evil magic powers of Cliff, so I was able to make it to my destination that day (instead of being stuck overnight in Denver).My luggage, on the other hand, was still ticketed for the canceled flight - consequently, it didn't arrive until 11:15 the next morning.Labels: airports suck, austin, vacation
i'll take "things i'd never thought i'd hear myself say" for $400, alex
As the snow continues to fall here in good old Mad City, I've started to come to a realization.I want to move to Texas.Why would anyone that has spent their whole life living dreaming of living in the northeast (or Chicago) ever even remotely consider moving to the Lone Star State?Well...yeah, okay, my parents live there. More importantly, I'd like to think I could move back in with my parents and live relatively cheaply while I try to pay off my $160,000 in loans on a $35,000/year salary. And since on that salary I couldn't afford my Cubs games, I may as well be as far away as I can get to avoid the temptation of enjoying a sunny Saturday at Wrigley.It's warm there most of the year. Today, my mother sent me yet another "hey, guess what - I got sunburned this week!" message - just her way of letting me know that she thinks it's hilarious that I'm stuck under a foot of snow loves me. Apparently.And since I haven't mentioned it in a while...decent Mexican food. Edible Mexican food. Mexican food that was cooked by Mexicans that came across the border illegally a week ago - not a year ago. (And yes - only 27 days until I go to Texas for spring break, and Mexican food will be the first thing I eat after my grandparents go back to New York.) Labels: austin, mexican food, wisconsin winters = death
i (still) need a taco
It's that time of year again...the end of the semester is quickly approaching. This means that my trip to Austin is a now-visible light at the end of the foul-smelling 800-mile tunnel that is law school. 32 days, 2 hours, and 11 minutes until I am once again eating Mexican food that was cooked by an immigrant that came across the border illegally the week before. I know that there are Mexican restaurants here in Madison...and apparently, one of them may not completely blow. However, I am convinced that only Matt's El Rancho can cure my post-exam ills.Actually, maybe those ills could be cured by more cowbell.Labels: austin, mexican food
my property professor is a death eater
I decided to skip my last two Property classes of the week to come down to Texas for Spring Break. I left my house Thursday, a little before 4pm. The chain of events went something like this:4:20pm - get dropped off at airport by KB. 4:22pm - realize that I left my purse in back of KB's car. 4:24pm - start begging people for cell phones so that I can call my cell phone in the hopes that KB will hear a phone that isn't hers and come back.4:35pm - KB brings purse back to airport; get back in line4:37pm - start fighting with United Airlines agent because he won't ticket me for my Denver-Austin flight, because my Madison-Denver flight has been delayed to the point where I'd miss my connection by four minutes, and United refuses to hold planes.4:50pm - give up and take last ticket for the Denver-Austin flight leaving 10:30 the following morning7:30pm - arrive in Denver ten minutes ahead of schedule; race to see if I can make the flight I was supposed to be on that was leaving at 7:40pm.7:35pm - get to gate; discover 7:40 Denver-Austin flight left fifteen minutes early.7:45pm - arrive at customer service; realize that the Denver-Austin flight stranded no fewer than half a dozen people who were either in transit or at security.7:46pm - get even more peeved because they would've moved me back to the 7:40 flight. Get excited because I can still get a flight to Dallas that lands at midnight CST.7:50pm - fail to convince parents to drive 4 hours to pick me up in Dallas. Glumly take voucher for discounted hotel stay.8:45pm - arrive at hotel in Denver.9:05pm - realize that I left my contact lens case in my checked baggage, which is conveniently back at the airport. ...the next morning...8:00am - leave hotel in Denver. 8:45am - make it through security; discover that 10:30 flight to Austin now delayed until 10:55am.8:55am - find an outlet to plug in DVD player and watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.10:06am - Harry Potter ends. Put in Pride and Prejudice so that it's loaded when I get on the plane.10:30am - wonder why we're not boarding yet.10:40am - 10:55 flight now delayed indefinitely because a crew member decided to take the day off. 10:41am - get angry and cranky, partly because of the flight situation, and partly because I'm beginning to feel like Nick Nolte's Mug Shot.10:42am - laugh at situation, because I would already be in Austin had the previous night's plane been delayed this long.11:30am - decide to forage for food.11:45am - go to bathroom11:46am - my flight's boarding! hooray! 11:47am - realize that my boarding pass fell out somewhere between the foraging and the bathroom. 11:48am - panic11:49am - find boarding pass back at newsstand. Am informed that they would've reissued the boarding pass at the gate and let me board without coming back to look for it.12:05pm - plane fina-freakin'-lly leaves Denver3:30pm - plane lands in Austin. Surprisingly, my checked baggage survived it's night's stay in Denver.3:48pm - realize that, if I had left Madison after LR&W on Thursday and driven, I would've arrived before my plane ended up landing.4:00pm - arrive at parents' house, a full 24 hours after I left Madison.As soon as I realized that I wasn't going to make it to Madison Thursday night, I determined that this was some sort of punishment for me skipping Property on Thursday. After watching Harry Potter, I decided that my Property professor is in cahoots with Lord Voldemort, and conjured up the previously-unknown Fourth Unforgivable Curse - the Flight Delay - in order to make me regret conveniently skipping my on-call day. When I get back, I'm gonna see if I can talk someone into sending him to Azkaban.Happy Spring Break!Labels: airports suck, austin, property class, vacation
