Twelve Days of Christmas

Dec. 25: I opened presents with my family, ate tons of delicious food (shrimp dip, piglets in a blanket, crab), and went to Mass at the Church of the Resurrection, the parish of my youth.

Dec. 26: I spent a lovely day with my mom at the mall.

Dec. 27: I had lunch with my extended family, and went on an evening adventure with a bunch of my friends from high school.

Dec. 28: I finally got a Zhu Zhu pet, and wandered the streets of San Jose with Morgan, eventually ending up in the lounge of the Fairmont for a drink.

Dec. 29: I enjoyed a proper afternoon tea hosted by Alissa.

Dec. 30: I had dinner with more high school friends, bringing the total number of high school friends seen in a four-day period to 14.

Dec. 31: I visited my grandmother, and celebrated the East Coast new year with California sparkling wine with my family (since Mom wouldn't have made it to midnight).

Jan. 1: I took the train to Sacramento for Emily's bridal shower, and was delighted to catch up with so many ADX girls.

Jan. 2: My family and I worked together to un-decorate the house, which was refreshing.

Jan. 3: After Mass, Mom and I ate donuts at the Wheel, our favorite donut shop.

Jan. 4: I slept in, made coffee, completed a crossword puzzle and not much else.

Jan. 5: I pretended I was a house elf and did a bunch of chores around the house.

Taking a Break

I've been home for a week. I flew out last Tuesday, in spite of the fact that I overslept and missed my flight! I am still in disbelief that I did such a thing. However, Delta was extremely helpful. I woke up at 6 a.m., 40 minutes before my flight was scheduled to depart, and, after freaking out for about five minutes, called Delta to see if I could reschedule. When I called, an automated system asked me for my frequent flyer number, and then connected me to an operator who said, "Hello, Ms. Stempson, I see that you are going to miss your flight..." and proceeded to tell me that there was another flight I could catch at 8:25. I was amazed that she did all of this instantaneously without even asking me why I was calling. Plus, they only charged me a $50 fee, which I thought was very reasonable. I've been very impressed with Delta during my transcontinental flights over the past couple of years, and this is yet another example of their excellent service.

The first few days home were not quite vacation time, as I had a paper due on Friday. I decided that I preferred to finish editing my paper at home, rather than sticking around in D.C. In light of the crazy snowstorm that dumped 20.5 inches on Arlington and shut down the airports, I am very thankful that I decided to fly out early. I am pleased with how my paper turned out. I wrote it for my Transnational Law seminar, but got it to overlap with my Poverty Law Journal note. The topic was "Child Support and Indigence: How the Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance Will Help Poor Creditor Parents."

Once I submitted my paper online, vacation officially began--not only for me, but also for my family! We've been hanging around the house, baking Christmas cookies, doing some shopping, and getting ready for our Christmas Eve gathering with my uncle and grandmother. Our family tradition is to eat crab on Christmas Eve, yum!

Also, I wanted to share some internship news. First, I am excited to say that I was offered--and accepted--a spring internship with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless! So, next semester, I will be interning with the Legal Clinic 10 hours per week, which will involve direct client casework, researching legal questions, coalition work, and community education work.

I am still searching for a summer legal internship in the Bay Area. Yesterday, I had an in-person interview with the Santa Clara County office of Bay Area Legal Aid, for a summer internship position. (I had a screening interview with them in D.C. back in October.) The office is right in downtown San Jose, which would be a very easy commute from Sunnyvale. (I plan to live with my family again this summer to save money.) I enjoyed meeting the attorneys who interviewed me... They were both friendly and enthusiastic about their work. BayLegal provides legal services to low-income people living in the Bay Area. Law clerks get to work in one of three fields: domestic violence, housing, or public benefits.

Not sure if I'll post again before Christmas, so:

Merry Christmas!

(Doesn't that photo make my three-foot tree look enormous?)

Nativity

There has been a pumpkin sitting on the counter since the beginning of October. We didn't carve it on Halloween, so we kept it around for November. Well, folks, it's December, and the pumpkin is still on our counter! So, tonight, I was sitting in the living room, relaxing after having taken my Corporations final this afternoon, just staring at the pumpkin, wondering what to do with it. Jess and I had already talked about roasting the pumpkin seeds, but I also kind of wanted to carve it. I mean, you might as well if you're going to go to the trouble of scraping out the innards, right?

But, it would not be appropriate to carve a traditional jack-o'-lantern. We have Christmas lights and a tree up, after all! What, then, to do? My first thought was to carve Santa Claus' face, and then put a Santa hat on the pumpkin, but I decided that my carving skills were not quite at that level. I decided that a snowflake would be doable, and grabbed some paper and a pencil to sketch out what I wanted it to look like. I poked some strategic holes in the pumpkin as a guide, and, within two cuts, had already messed up the symmetry of the snowflake. Now, I could not live with an unsymmetrical snowflake, so I quickly abandoned that plan.

As I looked at my cuts, I realized that it kind of looked like a crucifix, so I added another cut to complete it. Then, I carved out part of the bottom as the ground. I liked it a lot, especially its avant-garde angle. But, then it hit me that this made it more of an Easter pumpkin than a Christmas pumpkin. What to do?! I thought about it for a little bit, and decided on this:

You see? The first crucifix was on the left, and then I added another one on the right to create a manger. The three triangles in the center are Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It's an abstract nativity pumpkin! I think what I really like about it is that the family looks kind of like eyes and a nose, with the ground as a mouth, retaining an echo of a Jack-o'-lantern face.

Oh, Twitter...

Wow. The library just told me that I need to get more sleep:

Finding My Stride

I just found my stride in studying for final exams. I felt a little flutter of excitement in my stomach while reviewing my Tax Law notes just now. It was one of those "ah ha" moments where the reality of where I am and what I'm doing washes over me--wow, I'm in law school in Washington, D.C., only a year-and-a-half away from becoming a lawyer. Why do we grumble so much about final exams, when it is such a privilege to be here? As students, our job is to learn! We are so fortunate. I am reminded of the thrill that I get when I bring home new textbooks at the beginning of a semester. There is so much potential. It is important to harness that same energy and excitement at the end of the semester, to finish as strongly as I started.

It's snowing!

Good weather for studying with a mug of hot apple cider--which, incidentally, is good, as there is much studying to be done. Final exams on Wednesday (Tax), Friday (Corporations), and the following Monday (Professional Responsibility), plus a paper due on the 18th; keep me in your prayers.



Oh, and while we're on the topic of weather, I must share this with you: http://obama-weather.com/Obama/s/20001. Obama shows you how to dress for the week's weather! Hilarious, and makes checking the forecast so much less mundane.

Advent(ures)

Happy first Sunday of Advent! I love liturgical seasons, because they present opportunities to start anew. Advent, in particular, appeals to me because of the wonderful sense of anticipation. Everyone is looking forward to Christmas! Moving away from home has intensified this expectant feeling, as I am excited not only for Christmas, but also for the chance to go home. And, of course, all students eagerly await the conclusion of final exams. I pray that this season will be prayerful, productive, and joyful for all of us.

In the spirit of welcoming Christ into our lives and homes, Jess and I decorated our apartment! An impromptu visit to Target yielded wonderful results--stockings, lights, and even a little Christmas tree!

My favorite part is that we spelled out our names on the stockings using pipe cleaners. And, the lights look so gorgeous. Jess and I keep finding excuses to wander into the living room when we should be in our rooms, studying. The little tree is just right for us, too. (The tree skirt is one of Jess's scarves!) We are very pleased with the resulting atmosphere of our apartment.

The past couple of weeks, while fraught with another brand of anticipation in the form of final exams, have nonetheless been full of good moments. The weekend before last, of course, Cal kept the Axe! Jess and I had a good time watching the game at the Cal-Stanfurd D.C. alumni viewing party at Bar Louie in Chinatown. Go Bears!

I'm currently looking for a spring internship, to take advantage of all of the amazing opportunities for law students here in D.C., and last week was exciting because I had an interview with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless! We'll see what happens... I've applied to other places as well, and have an interview coming up with the Department of Health and Human Services Departmental Appeals Board this week. I am looking for an internship to complete my Pro Bono Pledge hours, which I think is a great idea. So, keep your fingers crossed that I find an internship that allows me to grow through service.

Jess and I both stayed in D.C. for the Thanksgiving holiday so that we could get work done, but that didn't stop us from having fun! We attended not one, but two Thanksgiving dinners. The first was on Wednesday, hosted by the President of Georgetown University in one of the dining halls on campus, and it was fantastic. We ate a ridiculous amount of food, including multiple desserts, and made some lovely new friends at our table. Oh, and there was live music! Very classy, Georgetown. There were lovely flowers as centerpieces that [Jess and I decided] were up for grabs, so now I even have some gorgeous chrysanthemums living in my room!

The second dinner was on the law school campus on Thanksgiving day, sponsored by our dean and organized by Sr. Dorinda, who led us in an interesting Native American prayer before the meal. This meal was even better than the one on main campus, in my opinion. I'm not usually a stuffing fan, but something about this stuffing made it delicious. And, the gravy was fantastic. The best part was that they provided plates and plastic wrap so that we could take home leftovers! Mm, still have a bit of turkey in the fridge.

Thanksgiving morning, Jess and I did some volunteer work with Food and Friends, an organization in D.C. that delivers food to home-bound cancer and AIDS patients. After a training session at their very organized facility, we were off, armed with three gigantic bags stuffed with full Thanksgiving dinners to feed families of four, including entire turkeys, multiple pies, and all of the fixings. We drove around Northwest D.C., dropping off the meals at our assigned locations. One old lady cracked us up by asking where our "menfolk" were, and seemed disappointed to learn that it was just us. Oh, goodness...

On Friday afternoon, Jess and I went to the Kennedy Center to see the National Symphony Orchestra perform The Music Man, conducted by Marvin Hamlisch! We weren't sure exactly how they were going to do it, and were very surprised and delighted to see it performed on stage, right in front of the orchestra, featuring Shirley Jones, her son Patrick Cassidy, and Rebecca Luker. It was very entertaining, and a great way to take a break from our studies. (Though, admittedly, this break was not as productive as I had planned.) The best part was that we had fantastic seats in the orchestra for only $15, thanks to the Kennedy Center's Attend program for 17- to 25-year-olds. For goodness sake, parking cost more!

Other than that, I've been focusing on my studies, what with my Tax Law exam only ten days away, yikes! Well, actually, I did do one other little fun thing over the Thanksgiving break--I read Dan Brown's new novel, The Lost Symbol. Jess bought it last week (and raced through the 500 pages in a day), so I couldn't help but do the same. Obviously, as an English major, I could critique the writing--I mean, no one needs to use the word "esoteric" that many times in one book--but I don't think that Brown is trying to write a meaningful masterpiece. No, he's trying to entertain, and he succeeded in that regard. I was especially interested in reading the book because it takes place in D.C., which made it a lot of fun to read his descriptions of the city and think, I know what he's talking about! He made a few minor errors (e.g., the seats on the Metro are not hard plastic), but I'll forgive him. I enjoyed the story, even if Jess and I both saw the big twist coming from a mile off. At any rate, I recommend it if you're looking for a quick, light read, and, if not, it'll make a for fun movie in a few years.