In the pursuit of His justice

Friday, May 20, 2011

Dear Nana

Dear Nana,

You passed away last night, while I was 3,000 miles away. You were 87 years old and suffering from Alzheimer's, so perhaps it was merciful that God took you home. Nonetheless, I am so sad that I couldn't be by your bedside as you left this world. I know you were so supportive of my education, and that you'll be looking in on my graduation this Sunday.

I miss you already. You were always so encouraging, so selfless, so loving. You were such a hard worker. Your family was your top priority, and you raised three amazing sons all by yourself as a widow. You never married again, because Grandpa Leo was your true love. I am so glad that you can be with him again now.

Thank you for rekindling my relationship with God. As I wrote of you in an op-ed that I wrote for the Law Weekly my 1L year:

The week before I left for undergrad, I went to visit my grandmother. At the end of our visit, saying our good-byes, she tearfully embraced me and whispered in my ear, “Don’t lose faith.” Those three little words spurred me on to grow dramatically in my relationship with God, and provided me with a clear model for showing others accountability.

I have identified that moment as one of the major turning points of my faith life. Thank you for accepting God's call to be a vessel for his message, and for living a life full of grace that inspires me to be as compassionate and honorable as you have been.

I will miss your hugs. I will miss your perpetual concern that I wasn't wearing enough layers to keep warm. I will miss you eating crab with us at Christmas. I will miss you telling me that, if I ever need anything, just ask you. I will miss how you always hid tissues up your sleeves. I will miss the way you doctored up spinach dip with extra water chestnuts. I will miss you telling me the stories of what my dad and uncles were like growing up. I will miss your expertise in caring for plants. I will miss going out for ice cream with you. I will miss watching Mom paint your nails. I will miss...

When I was in sixth grade, we were assigned a school project to do about our hero. Most children chose well-known figures, like astronauts or Mother Teresa. I chose you as my hero. To this day, you are still my hero. You inspire me to work hard, to make sacrifices, to be caring, and, most importantly, to never lose faith. Thank you for always being there for me, and I love you so much.

Your granddaughter,
Amanda

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Final Finals, Finally

No more school,

Yet, way more books,

Is the bar exam as hard as it looks?

I had my last class of law school on Friday. While it wasn't very representative of my classroom experience these past three years, it was delightful: my professor had our fact-finding mission team over to her house for lunch. We debriefed our year-long seminar, and popped open some champagne to celebrate our hard work. The fact-finding mission has been one of the best things about law school, so it was a great way to conclude.

Of course, it's not quite over yet... I'll be working on final exams for the next two weeks. I have an essay due tomorrow for Nonprofit Organizations, an in-class exam on Thursday for Family Law II, and then self-paced take-home exams for Immigration Law & Policy and Law & Development. All told, this is actually the easiest final exam period that I will have had in law school, which is nice.

While my take-home exams aren't due until May 17th, my family arrives on the 14th, so my goal is to finish things before they arrive. I may even be able to finish things sooner than that, depending on my efficiency and diligence. However, I also want to complete the Early Bar Prep work that Barbri has provided us with to work on before our bar review course begins on the 23rd, so I'll be keeping myself busy one way or another.

Despite outlining and paper writing, I've had some fun during the past week or so. I attended the Easter Vigil at Holy Trinity last weekend, which was standing room only and a beautiful service that made me both laugh and tear up. Last Sunday, the CSA had our third annual Easter Brunch, which is always delicious and fun.

On Monday, I had an insightful conversation over dinner (at Busboys and Poets, yum) with a new friend I had met the week prior at the Holy Thursday Mass on main campus. Isn't it a bummer to make new friends right before one is about to move cross-country?

I spent most of Tuesday at a very interesting Immigration Law & Policy Conference that was hosted by the law school, the Migration Policy Institute, and CLINIC (Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.). I loved that my Immigration professor told us to skip class to attend the conference instead. Many of the take-away points were unsurprising: we need comprehensive immigration reform, ICE needs to start using their new PBNDS, and indigent immigrants in the court system should have the right to counsel. However, I did find the session on 287(g) agreements and Secure Communities to be particularly insightful, because they had the Chief of Police from Prince William County, VA, speak about how they implemented 287(g), and its impact on the community.

Friday night was the Poverty Journal's end-of-year banquet, which was at La Tasca. We had delicious tapas and sangria, and then hung out at a nearby bar called Redline. The bar has self-serve beer taps at every table, which was pretty unique. My Editor-in-Chief, Betsy, gave me a splendidly nerdy mug that says "data are plural," which was an issue we had to address repeatedly during our edits this past year. Being Managing Editor was a lot of work this year, but I'm going to miss working on the journal.

Yesterday, Jess and I, along with our friend and fellow Cal alum Mike, went to the ballpark to watch the Giants beat the Nationals. I hadn't been to the Nationals park before, and was very impressed by the layout--we were in the cheap seats for the first half of the game, but I still felt like I had a great view. And, the food was delicious; I had a Ben's chili dog and funnel cake. The best part of the game was at the end when Brian Wilson closed--I was proud to be wearing my number 38 jersey!

Alas, my blogging study break is officially over. Back to paper writing!

Friday, April 22, 2011

Wrapping up Lent

The past two weeks have been very exciting for my human rights fact-finding mission, because we are doing advocacy work on the Hill and with federal agencies to push for policy revisions to address the problems we identified in our report. It is liberating to be able to do more than point out a problem--to actually present ideas on how to solve those problems, and hopefully have an impact on the lives of future persons with mental disabilities at risk of being deported. So far, I have been part of a panel discussion at American University, met with an attorney at the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and met with the staff of Senator Gillibrand and Senator Leahy (collecting many business cards along the way). There are a few more big meetings coming up, so we'll see what happens!

Other things going on? Let's see, I've tabled with my journal for a bake sale to raise money for DC Books to Prisons, I attended a lovely reprise of Thanksgiving dinner at Brad and Marie's, we took our panoramic class photo (and it felt like high school all over again), the Catholic Student Association had a well-received Fish Fry, I saw the Georgetown Gilbert & Sullivan Society perform The Sorceror, I took several strolls around the Tidal Basin at night with Jess, we made butterbeer, I was the narrator for Palm Sunday Mass, and I've been studying for final exams and writing a paper.

Last night, a few of us from the CSA trekked over to main campus for Holy Thursday Mass. It was a very nice service, and struck me as a peaceful culmination of my Lenten experience. For most of Lent, I was not as devoted as I would have liked. However, things turned around a couple of weeks ago when I went to confession and renewed my commitment to a prayerful pursuit of God. He is awesome. My favorite part of the Holy Thursday Mass was the procession out of Dahlgren Chapel at the end of the Mass with the body of Christ. We sang and walked through Healy, around the side of the building to the Copley Crypt Chapel, which was calming and sincere.

My Triduum continues with a service at St. Joseph's on the Hill today, Easter Vigil tomorrow night at the Basilica of the National Shrine, and the CSA's third annual Easter Brunch on Sunday. Hopefully, I'll find time to work on a paper and do some outlining this weekend, too...

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

100 Days

Study

in 5 days: Easter

Study

in 10 days: the last day of class

Finals

in 25 days: my family comes to visit

Fun

in 33 days: I graduate from law school

in 34 days: I move back to CA

in 35 days: I begin studying for the CA bar exam

Bar review

in 60 days: Cameron and Eric's wedding
Bar review

Bar review

in 76 days: Independence Day

Bar review

in 98 days: the CA bar exam begins

Bar exam

in 100 days: the CA bar exam ends

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Webcast

The video of our report launch is now available online! You can access it here.

~~The report launch starts at the 20:00 minute mark, so fast forward to there to begin.~~ [EDIT: They have posted an updated version of the video that edits out the first 20 minutes, so I have updated the minute marks below.] If you just want to watch the parts where I speak, here are the minute marks:

00:20:17 - 00:26:34 -- My section on the right to health
00:51:58 - 00:53:07 -- I answer a question on women's issues
01:03:47 - 01:05:55 -- I answer a question on detention facilities

~~Unfortunately, our Powerpoint slides are hard to read in the video, but hopefully we'll be able to post those online as well.~~ [EDIT: You can find the slides from our Powerpoint presentation and a FAQ sheet about our project here.] Thanks again for all of your support!

Saturday, April 9, 2011

We Have Liftoff!

Yesterday's report launch was very successful! Everyone did an amazing job, and I'm so proud of the work we've done this year. We had well over 50 people attend the launch, plus more who tuned in online. (I'll post a link to the webcast as soon as I get it.)

My part of the presentation was on the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, and I felt great about how it went. I was particularly impressed by how my fellow team members fielded questions at the end of the presentation--it was a little unnerving because we couldn't prepare for that and just had to take questions as they came, but we all have particular areas of expertise at this point, so at least one of us had an answer to each question.

Finally, our report is now publicly available as a PDF! Check it out--if not to read the whole thing (it's quite long), then at least to see how pretty it is, with the professional graphic design. It's a real, actual, published report! So surreal.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Report Launch on Friday

This year, I have been a part of a year-long human rights fact-finding mission seminar through the Georgetown Law Human Rights Institute. Along with eight other law students, I have been studying the impact of U.S. deportation policies and practices on the human rights of persons with mental disabilities, which included spending a week in Kingston, Jamaica, in January interviewing dozens of deported persons and practitioners. This Friday, our 124-page report will be released to the public! We are hosting a report launch that will be attended by dozens of human rights practitioners and government officials, and I will be one of the student panelists presenting our findings.

If you are interested, there's information below about how to watch a live webcast of our report launch on Friday at noon Eastern (9 am Pacific). I will also post a link to our report and a recording of the report launch once those go public. The research, report writing, and advocacy work that I have been doing this past year on this issue has been one of the most meaningful and worthwhile experiences of my law school career, and I just wanted to share it with you.