Spring Break

This past week was my much-needed Spring Break. I discovered this week that I really do love the Bay Area. The weather is mild, the culture is thriving, the people are my friends and family. When I left for D.C., I figured that moving to the East Coast would solidify my love of the Bay Area, and it has. This is not to the detriment of my appreciation for D.C., and how glad I am to be living here for another two years. Rather, moving away has shed some light on the subtle blessings that I have enjoyed growing up in the Bay Area.

I spent Monday through Wednesday in Berkeley, which was fantastic. I went to Monday night meeting at ADX. It felt strange to not know half of the girls in the room. I got to have coffee with a lot of different friends, and I was glad to see that our conversations picked up where they last left off, a confirmation of true friendship. FHE at the Alumni House was a lot of fun, and delicious! I also got my Newman Hall fix--I went to Mass, I had dinner at the rectory, and went to Seekers. Seekers was so adorable for making me a sign! A bunch of us went out to Nations afterward, which was great. And, I got to hang out with Robert, who makes me smile so much. :-)

While in Berkeley, I also got a chance to visit East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, a non-profit that provides legal services to immigrants and refugees. I have an offer to intern with them this summer, which I will probably accept. Berkeley kids, you know that one door labeled "The Living Room" on the side of Trinity United Methodist (the church across the street from the RSF)? Well, that door leads to the basement of the church, where EBSC is located! What a small world. I'm still hoping to hear back from some other summer internships, but at least I have one opportunity lined up.

Outside of my visit to Berkeley, I spent my Spring Break in Sunnyvale with my family. It was a low-key visit, which was nice. I got some studying done, but, more importantly, I now feel sufficiently recharged to tackle the second half of the semester. (Finals start in 6 weeks, wow!) This break provided me a chance for a little introspection, since I was continually asked "How is law school?!" My answer is that law school is tough, but good. Last semester was a lot of trial and error, but I feel far more confident about where I'm going this semester. Hopefully, I'll be able to maintain a firm reliance upon God for my strength in these last four weeks of Lent, and last two months of my first year of law school.

Stop, Thief!

My Torts professor from last semester sent an email out today requesting the help of some students in giving a demonstration in his afternoon Evidence class. He wanted to prove to his class that police lineups are inaccurate. So, his idea was, a few minutes into lecture, to have a group of us run in to the unsuspecting classroom, with one student running up to him and stealing his casebook while the rest of us raised a ruckus, shouting and running around. I thought this was brilliant, and immediately volunteered. To complicate things, after we ran back out of the classroom, we traded coats, changed our hairstyles, and put on our backpacks before coming back into the classroom for the lineup. Amazingly, it confounded some of the students! Most of the class voted for the right person as the actual thief, but a lot of people picked the girl who had traded coats with the thief, and a few people picked me, even though I was the only blond in the group. What a great demonstration... It's not every day that a professor invites you to disrupt his class and steal from him.

In Like a Lion

The reason why my Criminal Justice class was canceled this morning:


Snow is so adorable! Also, snowflakes really do have a hexagonal crystal structure, as I learned from the railing outside of my window:


Well, I think I'll just have some coffee, do some reading, and enjoy my snow globe-esque view of the city!

Potpourri

There were a lot of random things going on this week that I want to share. I think I'll just go through the week chronologically...

Sunday: Snail Soup
As a part of DC's annual Restaurant Week (during which you can eat at fancy restaurants off of a prix fixe menu), I went to 1789, a restaurant in Georgetown. I had a snail and broccoli soup, steak, cauliflower au gratin, and a brandied cherry chocolate cake. Delicious!

Monday: King's Cake
I traveled by Metro all the way to Maryland for cake! King's Cake, that is. Catholic Forum decided to give out free King's Cake for Mardi Gras, but the nearest bakery offering King's Cake was 25 miles away in Rockville. The most difficult part was Mike and I each carrying four cakes on the mile-long walk back to the Metro station in 35-degree weather with 40-mph gusts of wind. I am still amazed that neither of us dropped any cakes.

Tuesday: Obama's Address
I enjoyed watching President Obama's address to Congress. For one thing, it's always exciting for me when something is going on at the Capitol, because I live a half-mile away, which is just ridiculously cool. Also, I was thrilled to see Justice Ginsburg there, in light of her recent pancreatic cancer surgery. She is so tough! I think my favorite sentiment from Obama's speech was what he had to say about education: "And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It's not just quitting on yourself; it's quitting on your country. And this country needs and values the talents of every American." Absolutely.

Wednesday: Ash Wednesday
Lent is my favorite liturgical season, so Ash Wednesday always means a lot to me. I went to Mass at the National Shrine, which was beautiful. I am dust and to dust I shall return (Genesis 3:19). Amen.

Thursday: Uncertainty
I went to Professor Goldberg's inauguration as a new endowed chair for law and religion on Thursday afternoon. I had Prof. Goldberg as my Constitutional Law professor last semester, and he was fantastic, so I was very curious to hear his address on "The Book of Job and the Role of Uncertainty in Religion and Law." The take-away point was that, just as there is much uncertainty in our understanding of our relationship with God, so also must we embrace the uncertainty of the law. It takes the quintessential question of Job--why bad things happen to good people--to the next level. And, here I thought that going to law school would increase my knowledge of the law, rather than increasing my awareness of how little I really know. Go figure.

Friday: Dodgeball
I participated in the annual Georgetown Law dodgeball tournament with some friends from my section. I was a bit dubious about joining the team at first because I had never played "real" dodgeball before, but my teammates allayed my concerns by pointing out that all I really had to do was, well, dodge the ball. (We played by the National Amateur Dodgeball Association rules, in case you were wondering.) My team actually won its first round, which culminated in a spectacular show of force by Brad, in which he single-handedly eliminated the four opponents that he faced alone at the end of the second match. Truly, the stuff of legends.

Saturday: Library of Congress
I got to check off another item from my DC to-do list: getting a Library of Congress reader identification card! You have to go to the Madison Building to register for the card, and then you're allowed to go into all of the Library of Congress reading rooms! How cool is that?! Very cool, let me tell you. Well, before studying at the Library of Congress main reading room (in the Jefferson Building; see photo below), I decided to check out the Law Library of Congress reading room, since it was also in the Madison Building. Boy, was it ugly. I will never study there again, unless I legitimately have research needs that take me there. Also, if you ever want to see the most intense people on Earth, check out the people who show up at the Law Library of Congress on a Saturday morning. Wow.

Anyhow, after a break for lunch and a brief promenade around Eastern Market, I headed over to the Library of Congress main reading room. I had to go down a series of hallways marked for "Staff and Researchers," which eventually led me to the cloakroom, where I had to check basically everything except for my reading materials. Then, one flight of stairs, another hallway, I signed in, nodded to the security guard, and... I was there! It was breathtaking. I tried not to stare at the ceiling too much while I was there because I didn't want to look like a newbie, but I failed miserably. Oh, well. It was so exciting to be in the largest library in the world, studying hard, President Obama's words echoing in my head:

"In a global economy, where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity. It is a pre-requisite. [...] It is our responsibility as lawmakers and as educators to make this system work, but it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it."

If that isn't motivation to work hard as a student, I don't know what is.

The Library of Congress main reading room. How cool is it to study there? Very.
(Photo courtesy of Urch.)

Amanda's Tuna Casserole

On the Fridays of Lent, Catholics abstain from meat. I don't eat very much meat as it is, so this isn't usually a very big deal for me. However, I haven't been to the grocery store in ages, which required some creativity on my part this evening to cook any sort of dinner at all, let alone one in observance of Lent.

So, I rummaged through my kitchen, and this is what I found of note: canned tuna, croutons, penne pasta, Laughing Cow cheese wedges (garlic flavor), and frozen veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots). I pondered about what to do, and concluded that these ingredients were sufficiently close to tuna casserole to give it try! It came out really well, so I thought I'd share the recipe here (based loosely on the real recipe for tuna casserole in my Betty Crocker cookbook).

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Amanda's Tuna Casserole



Serves 3.

Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked penne pasta
2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 cup milk
2 Laughing Cow cheese wedges
1 cup frozen vegetables
1 can tuna in water, drained
1/2 cup croutons, crushed

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Prepare pasta and frozen vegetables as directed.
3. Meanwhile, melt one 1 tbsp. butter over low heat. Stir in flour and salt over medium heat, stirring constantly until smooth and bubbly. Gradually stir in milk, and heat to boiling. Add cheese; stir until melted.
4. Stir in pasta, vegetables, and tuna; mix well. Spoon into casserole dish. Bake 20 minutes or until hot and bubbly.
5. Meanwhile, in resealable sandwich bag, crush croutons. Melt remaining 1 tbsp. of butter, combine with crushed croutons in small bowl. Sprinkle as topping over casserole in last 5 minutes of baking or until toasted.

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I'm usually the type of person who likes to follow a recipe by the letter, so this improvisation was a veritable culinary adventure for me! It was a lot of fun to tweak the recipe as I went along to get the consistency that I wanted. It made me wonder if anyone else has ever put these ingredients together in exactly this same way. Is it really possible for me, in the 21st century, as one of 6.7 billion inhabitants of this planet, to do something completely unique? Food for thought.

Elevators

Why I realized that I should give up elevators for Lent...

Lenten Ideas

Erin was soliciting ideas for Lent, so I thought I'd post the brainstorm that I had a couple of days ago. I'm not necessarily doing all of this, but these are the ideas on the table for me. I'd love to hear other ideas, too!

1. Busted Halo (the online magazine for Catholics and seekers in their 20s and 30s run by the Paulists) put together a Lenten calendar called "Fast, Pray, Live" that provides a different factoid and act of discipline to be done each day of Lent. They're getting really creative, too; e.g., "fasting" might mean reducing your carbon footprint for the day.

2. Study the readings for daily Mass, well, daily. There are tons of different booklets published each year to guide you through the readings with a Lenten focus. My favorite is "Daily Reflections for Lent" by Sr. Katherine Howard. Oh, my gosh, Amazon is out of stock! Maybe they'll get more? Hm. I know that the UC Berkeley Graduate Theological Union bookstore on Le Conte between Euclid and Scenic used to carry them (though, I heard the store might be closing). Or, go to Christian bookstore online, I suppose. Or, if you find yourself in San Jose, I bought mine at Ave Maria, possibly the best Catholic bookstore in the Bay Area.

3. Participate in the Sacraments as much as humanly possible. Go to Mass on weekdays. Confess your sins weekly. We were talking about this last night in my Bible study; when we attend reconciliation just to talk about the big stuff, we never get around to confessing the little stuff. I mean, St. Therese de Lisieux would apparently burst into tears as a child for saying a harsh word to her siblings--imagine if we were as attuned to our own sins!

4. Don't just give up something for Lent: replace a bad habit with a good habit. For example, I waste a lot of time on the Internet, so I was trying to think of ways to shift that behavior. I could make my homepage a spiritual website instead of the New York Times. Or, after I read an article online, I could pray for the people involved in the story. Or, just like we pray before meals, think of how often you would pray if you said a prayer every time you were about to touch your laptop!

5. Do a different discipline or devotion each day of the week. This is what I'm probably going to do. I was thinking that I could focus on the seven heavenly virtues (the opposites of the seven deadly sins) as a theme for each day. This isn't necessarily what my schedule will be, but I was thinking of something along these lines:

Sundays: read the Sunday Missal, focus on charity (contra: greed)
Mondays: fast, focus on temperance (contra: gluttony)
Tuesdays: do prayers of intercession, focus on kindness (contra: envy)
Wednesdays: pray the Rosary, focus on chastity (contra: lust)
Thursdays: do Bible study, focus on diligence (contra: sloth)
Fridays: do the Liturgy of the Hours, focus on patience (contra: wrath)
Saturdays: go to Reconciliation, focus on humility (contra: pride)

6. Go on a personal retreat. You don't have to participate in a group retreat that goes away from the weekend, either. Grab your Bible, your journal, perhaps some spiritual study aids, and spend a day by yourself with God. Let your roommates know that you're doing this, and try to be silent for the day, focusing on your relationship with God. Read the Bible, journal, pray, rest, nourish yourself, be rejuvenated! You could do this with a friend, too, where you each decide to take a day for yourselves, and then meet up for dinner to discuss how your day went, and what you learned.

I'm curious to hear how others are planning their Lenten devotions...