Moving right along

So the semester continues on, and fall is advancing at the same breakneck clip as everything else around here. I seem to be settling into a steady enough routine, though unfortunately one that involves coming home after dark at least a couple of nights each week.

The week or so since I last posted has been eventful as ever. Monday was especially packed, with a meeting of my great Medicine, Ethics, and Law Through Film reading group back-to-back with a lovely banquet for the Public Service Initiative. Also, I may not have made it to Scalia last Thursday, but I did check out an appearance by the ever-controversial Dr. Jack Kevorkian. I even snapped a picture to prove it:

That's him at the podium, and beside him is Harvard Law's famous professor Alan Dershowitz.

Politics of euthanasia aside, I always found Dr. Kevorkian a little creepy. It seemed bad to have a guy I would've associated with death on looks alone serving as spokesman for physician-assisted suicide. But in person, he appeared far healthier and more relatable than he ever seemed on 60 Minutes. He used the word "nincompoops" to describe the Supreme Court- it was very humanizing.

Also this week, I had a mock hearing in preparation for my work with the Tenant Advocacy Project. TAP is a group of students who, under lawyers' supervision, represent public housing tenants who are facing eviction or other problems with their landlords or housing authorities. The hearing went well- my only real mistake was being too timid about cutting my "client" short when she started to ramble- and now I'm feeling less nervous about having a real case before long. 1L's are allowed to work in pairs on their first case, and a classmate has already asked me to work with him, which I took as a real compliment. Exciting!

A few other exciting things are coming up soon:

• The moot court Harvard is about to host for a real Supreme Court case! A lawyer who will soon argue before the Court is coming next week to try out his oral arguments before a "court" of nine experts, among whom is my Torts professor. We're all expected to go watch, and are being assigned the case materials for reading next week so we'll understand it all. We Harvard nerds find this very thrilling, even if it does coincide with the stress of our final memo due date for LRW.
  
• Training for my Election Day activity of choice: exit polling for a professor who's studying polling places, race issues, and general voter trends in Boston. My work can spot election law violations and help assess this election once it's all over!
  
• Fly-out week, the fall break 1L's get to enjoy while 2L's and 3L's travel the country for job interviews. I'm headed to El Paso to see my baby sister... and get warm.
  

Between this wealth of outside opportunity and the more steady, predictable struggle of keeping up with my reading and dragging my butt to class, I've definitely got my hands full. In fact, I think Russell worries about me a little. But I watched TV tonight and even found time to write you guys a nice, long update. So you be the judge.